He has
ventured to alter some of the Linnaean 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 observations of those
birds, I never could discover the least degree of rivalry or hostility
between the species.
Ray remarks that birds of the gallinae 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 frequency 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.
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