224 NATURAL HISTORY 



pheasants, &c. 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 fre- 

 quently seen grovelling and wallowing in 

 dusty roads ; and yet they are great wash- 

 ers. Does not the skylark dust ? 



Query, Might not Mahomet and his fol- 

 lowers take one method of purification from 

 the^Q pulveratrices P because I find from tra- 

 vellers 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 ofi'his clothes, and most scrupulously 

 rubs his body over with sand or dust. 



A countryman told me he had found a 

 yowng fer7i-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 

 phenomenon, and found that it was a young 



