OF SELBORNE 133 



The reason perhaps why he mentions nothing of Ray's 

 Ornithology may be the extreme poverty and distance of 

 his country, into which the works of our great naturalist 

 may have never yet found their way. You have doubts, 

 I know, whether this Ornithology is genuine, and really 

 the work of Scopoli : as to myself, I think I discover 

 strong tokens of authenticity ; the style corresponds with 

 that of his Entomology ; and his characters of his 

 Ordines and Genera are many of them new, expressive, 

 and masterly. He has ventured to alter some of the 

 Linnsean genera with sufficient show of reason. 



It might perhaps be mere accident that you saw so 

 many swifts and no swallows at Staines ; because, in my 

 long observation of those birds, I never could discover 

 the least degree of rivalry or hostility between the species. 



Ray remarks that birds of the gallinse order, as cocks 

 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 themselves 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 



