A CUEIOUS HABIT. 57 



close to a milldam, but always near running 

 water. One I knew of was under a rude bridge 

 on Dartmoor, wedged between two granite 

 boulders; another by the side of a milldam in 

 Cornwall, a third amongst the timbers of an old 

 salmon-trap. 



The dippers are most restless and active in 

 their habits : ever flitting from spot to spot, 

 always on the move, diving into the stream, out 

 again steadfast in nothing but continual change. 

 The most singular trait in their versatile cha- 

 racter is a power they possess, enabling them not 

 only to remain for a long time under water, but 

 walk about on the pebbles or gravel at the 

 bottom of streams or pools, in search of larva? 

 and aquatic insects, just as a man in a diving- 

 dress seeks for lost treasure round the hull of a 

 sunken ship. 



The late and ever-to-be-lamented naturalist, 

 Mr. Waterton, thus commented on this most 

 curious habit: 



' This is the bird whose supposed subaquatic 

 pranks have set the laws of gravity at defiance, 

 by breaking through the general mandate, which 

 has ordained that things lighter than water shall 

 rise towards its surface, and that things that are 

 heavier shall sink beneath it. If the water-ouzel, 



