78 BIRD LIFE IN A WESTERN VALLEY 



minnows and salmon-pink at a ford, will seek a 

 place where the conditions of water and of fishing 

 are apparently similar. 



III. The Dipper 



The dipper has never been harassed in these 

 western valleys to the same extent that the king- 

 fisher and the heron have. He makes no impos- 

 ing show, as the stately heron does, in a glazed 

 case, with artificial rocks and reeds and painted 

 background, over which the sky is a marvel of 

 vivid blue such as only the mind of the country 

 taxidermist could suggest. And though, amid 

 his natural surroundings — rippling streams, and 

 tumbling waterfalls, and many-coloured rocks 

 and ferns and moss and trees, decked with those 

 wonderful pearly lights and shadows which are 

 peculiar to narrow valleys divided into swamps 

 and islands by numerous watercourses — ^the 

 dipper, with his snow-white throat, rust-brown 

 waist, and dark-grey head, back, wings, and tail, 

 is at all seasons a neat and dapper little fellow, 

 his appearance is not nearly so distinguished as 

 that of the brilHant kingfisher. 



A familiar figure by the brook, as the blackbird 

 or the wren is in the meadow-hedge, the dipper is 

 seldom molested by the passing sportsman. Like 

 the wren, he sings in all kinds of weather. His 

 blithe and fearless heart is never saddened by 



