128 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



and hens, partridges, and pheasants, etc., are pulveratrices, 

 such as dust themselves, using that method of cleansing 

 their feathers, and ridding themselves of their vermin. As 

 far as I can observe, many birds that dust themselves never 

 wash ; and I once thought that those birds that wash them- 

 selves would never dust ; but here I find myself mistaken, 

 for common house-sparrows are great pulveratrices, being 

 frequently seen grovelling and wallowing in dusty roads ; 

 and yet they are great washers. Does not the skylark 

 dust? 



Query. Might not Mahomet and his followers take one 

 method of purification from these pulveratrices ? because I 

 find from travellers of credit, that if a strict Mussulman is 

 journeying in a sandy desert where no water is to be found, 

 at stated hours he strips off his clothes, and most scrupulously 

 rubs his body over with sand or dust. 



A countryman told me he had found a young fern-owl in 

 the nest of a small bird on the ground, and that it was fed 

 by the little bird. I went to see this extraordinary phe- 

 nomenon, and found that it was a young cuckoo hatched in 

 the nest of a titlark ; it was become vastly too big for its 

 nest, appearing 



"... in tenui re 

 Majores pennas nido extendisse ..." 



and was very fierce and pugnacious, pursuing my finger, as 

 I teased it, for many feet from the nest, and sparring and 

 buffeting with its wings like a game-cock. The dupe of a 

 dam appeared at a distance, hovering about with meat in 

 its mouth, and expressing the greatest solicitude. 



In July I saw several cuckoos skimming over a large 

 pond, and found, after some observation, that they were 

 feeding on the libellula, or dragon-flies, some of which 



