160 The Scottish Naturalist. 



destroyed during three years." A Mr. Rennie states emphatically 

 " that the dipper consumes a considerable quantity of fishes' spawn) 

 and especially of the ova of the salmon." 



I have watched this bird in all seasons, taken him even when 

 issuing from the spawning bed at the head of the Coquet in North- 

 umberland, opened him in the presence of his very foes, the watchers, 

 and shown them the little beauty's stomach brimfull of water beetles 

 and larvae, mixed with minute particles of shells and small stones. 

 Might it not be possible, as one shrewder than his fellows said, that 

 all traces of the ova might have disappeared, being more easily 

 digested. I leave this point for the Analyst and Physiologist. I 

 have followed him and dissected him in localities where he w r as most 

 likely to be found guilty ; but always with the same result. In the 

 stomachs of the young the same ingredients were found ; but no 

 traces of ova, and very little trace of small fish. 



I have found the nest on the Tees and its tributaries, on the Wear 

 and its rivulets, on the Tyne (Blythe Wansbeek, Coquet, Till), Tweed 

 (Leader, Whiteadder, Blackadder, Garrow), Ettrick, Meggal, Manor 

 Water, Annan, and Nith ; among the Cumberland mountains; on the 

 J ed, Gala, North and South Esks in Midlothian ; among the streams 

 of the Lammermoor Hills, the Pentland Hills, Moorfoot Hills, in 

 Perthshire, Forfarshire, and Fifeshire. I have also had it sent me 

 from various parts where the bird frequented, and ova were to be 

 found ; and have come to the conclusion, not hastily indeed, that the 

 Dipper (cheery songster of some of our most sequestered nooks, 

 known only to the angler and fern hunter) is quite innocent of the 

 grave charges made against him ; and that in future all keepers and 

 watchers should be strictly enjoined to leave him alone. 



I shall quote in defence of my observations the statements of two 

 of our greatest ornithologists I say greatest advisedly, because their 

 works are entirely based on a lifetime of close observation. 



Mr. Macgillivray says : " that the whole internal anatomical con- 

 struction of the Dipper precludes the idea of his feeding entirely on 

 soft food. The slightly extensile tongue, sagittate, narrow, and grooved, 

 with its terminal bristle points ; the extremely muscular strong-walled 

 stomach, with its dense and tough inner-lining; the whole of the 

 digestive apparatus, all point to harder and less easily digested fare 

 as necessary. The digestive organs, he further adds, are entirely 

 analogous to those of the thrushes and allied genera, but bear no 

 resemblance to those of the Piscivorous birds, the oesophagus being 

 narrow, and the stomach a true gizzard. After a fine defence of the 

 bird, he concludes : " Although I have opened many, I have never 



