THE DIPPER. 13 



"Tlie biid 



Is here, the solitary bird, that makes 

 The rock his sole companion. Leafy vale, 

 Green bower, and hedgerow fair, and garden rich 

 With bud and bloom, delight him not; he bends 

 No spray, nor roams tlie AvUdeniess of boughs, 

 "Wliere love and song detain a million wings 

 Through all the summer mom, — the summer eve; 

 He has no fellowship with waving woods; 

 He joins not in their merrj' minstrelsj-, 

 But flits from ledge to ledge, and through the day 

 Sings to the liighland waterfall that speaks 

 To him in strains he loves, and lists 

 For ever." 



Seldom in verse have the habits of any living creature been more truthfully 

 depicted; for though in like strains the poet often sketches nature^ yet the 

 accustomed ^license' as often mars the life of the picture. 



On one occasion we stood listening to one of these modest-looking songsters 

 as it poured forth its lays^ just as it had finished a finny meal from a small 

 minnow, and taken up its position on a stone in the middle of M running 

 brook, when the want of a skin strongly urged us to shoot it. It was a 

 cruel act, followed by disappointment and regret; and the readers of the 

 "Naturalist" may rest assured it will not be repeated by the same hand. On 

 the shot being fired, the poor bird, to our surprise, remained sitting, and as 

 we approached we could observe it closing its eyes, while the blood trickled 

 down its white throat. It then started, flew a short distance, and falling into 

 the bubbling '^rapids,' was carried off; while its mate (their nest being hard 

 by,) hurried to and fro, and chirped in sounds of grief not to be mistaken. 

 The mention of this brings to our recollection a short anecdote communicated 

 by our friend. Dr. Nelson, of Lytham, who thus, narrates the circumstance as 

 it occurred to himself: — 



^'At the close of winter, or rather early in spring, whilst following the windings 

 of a small stream in East Lothian with my gun on my arm, I started a 

 Dipper, and sent a random shot after it. The bird appeared to be hit, but it 

 flew on and at leng-th settled on a stone about a hundred yards distant from 

 m6. Favoured by an intervening bank, I approached within a short distance 

 of the spot; and never shall I forget the sweet warblings of that little throat 

 as it murmured above the sound of the purling brook. My anxiety to procure 

 a specimen caused me again to put up the bird, and I killed it on the wing;' 

 but when I came to examine the stone where it had been sitting, and found 

 thereon several drops of blood, I was stung with remorse to think I had been 

 the means of taking its life." Poor little Dipper! it had actually been singing 

 after receiving a death wound, and thus, as our informant feelingly concludes, 

 "had, whilst its life's blood trickled on its perch, warbled its last notes in the 

 haunts of its happy solitude." 



This is another of the melancholy cruelties arising from the 'want of a 

 skin,' but qualified, we trust, as in the other case with as much remorse as 



