I02 CATALOGUE OF BIRDS. 



destroy it altogether by poking a walking-stick 

 through it in several places, and thus rendering it 

 useless for the birds to adopt on some future 

 occasion. I was very angry — not unnaturally, you 

 will admit — at the behaviour of these Bank Holiday 

 visitors. 



The next occasion was when staying at Arthog 

 Hall Hotel. A gentleman and his two sons 

 — very fond of natural history— told me that in the 

 rocky mountain stream called the Church Stream, 

 which meets the tidal water of the estuary at Arthog 

 Station, they had noticed a pair of these birds, and 

 thought they must have a nest somewhere, giving 

 me a fair indication of the particular spot where I 

 might find them. I went next morning and took up 

 a likely position. I had not to wait long before one 

 Dipper made his appearance on a boulder of rock. 

 It was evidently the male, so I waited and waited for 

 the female ; as she did not show herself for some hours 

 I concluded she must be sittino- on her eoas some- 

 where. At last my patience was rewarded by 

 seeing her amongst the boulders, by which I knew 

 that the nest could not be far off. Where ? that 

 was the point. After two or three days watching 

 for hours at a time I formed the conclusion^owing 

 to the fact of seeing both birds out on the rocks 

 together — that the young birds must now be hatched, 

 and that the parents had commenced feeding. 



I think it was something like the fourth day of 

 watching that I began to get an inkling of the where- 

 abouts of the nest, as the birds seemed to me to 



