On Animal Instinct : in its Relation to the Mind of Man, 321 



The Dipper or Water-ousel (Cinches aquaticus) is well known to 

 ornithologists as one of the most curious and interesting of British 

 birds. Its special habitat is clear mountain streams. These it never 

 leaves except to visit the lakes into which or from which they flow. 

 Without the assistance of webbed feet it has extraordinary powers of 

 swimming and of diving — moving about, upon, and under the surface 

 with more than the ease and dexterity of a fish— hunting along the 

 bottom as if it had no power to float — floating on the top as if it had 

 no power to sink — now diving where the stream is smooth, now where 

 it is quick and broken, and suddenly reappearing perched on the 

 summit of some projecting point. Its plumage is in perfect harmony 

 with its "environment" — dark, with a pure white breast, which looks 

 exactly like one of the flashes of light so numerous in rapid streams, 

 or one of the little balls of foam which loiter among the stones. Its 

 very song is set to the music of rapid waters. No bird, perhaps, is 

 more especially adapted to a very special home, and very peculiar 

 habits of life. The same species, or other forms so closely similar as to 

 seem mere varieties, are found in almost every country of the world 

 where there are mountain streams. And yet it is a species having no 

 very near affinity with any other bird, and it constitutes by itself a 

 separate genus. It is therefore a species of great interest to the 

 naturalist, and raises some of the most perplexing questions connected 

 with the "origin of species." 



A pair of these birds built their nest last year at Inverary, in a hole 

 in the wall of a small tunnel constructed to carry a rivulet under the 

 walks of a pleasure ground. The season was one of great drought, and 

 the rivulet, during the whole time of incubation, and of the growth of 

 the young in the nest, was nearly entirely dry. One of the nestlings 

 when almost fully fledged, was taken out by the hand for examination, 

 an operation which so alarmed the others that they darted out of the 

 hole, and ran and fluttered down the tunnel towards its mouth. At 

 that point a considerable pool of water had survived the drought, and 

 lay in the path of the fugitives. They did not at all appear to seek it; 

 on the contrary, their flight seemed to be as aimless as that of any 

 other fledgling would have been in the same predicament. But one of 

 them stumbled into the pool. The effect was most curious. Wlien the 

 young bird touched the water there was a moment of pause, as if the 

 creature was surprised. Then instantly there seemed to wake within 

 it the sense of its hereditary powers. Down it dived with all the 

 facility of its parents, and the action of its wings under the water was 

 a beautiful exhibition of the double adaptation to progression in two 

 very different elements, which is peculiar to the wings of most of the 



