THE DIPPERS AND WRENS 



• In a work of the present scope it is fortunately 

 unnecessary to deal with complicated questions of 

 the affinities and taxonomic position of birds, and 

 in associating the above-mentioned species we must 

 not lead readers to suppose that they are by any 

 means so closely allied as this arrangement may 

 seem to suggest. The birds have certain char- 

 acteristics in common, but this fact may be of no 

 value whatever as an indication of affinities. By 

 earlier writers the Dippers, owing to their aquatic 

 habits, were sometimes associated with the Water 

 Birds; later systematists have grouped them with the 

 Thrushes or the Wrens. Possibly they constitute a 

 very isolated family, with no near-existing relations. 

 About a dozen species of Dippers are known to 

 science, and these are distributed over the moun- 

 tainous parts of Europe, Asia, and America, and 

 the extreme north of Africa. They are all, so 

 far as is known, sedentary species, and do not 

 present much diversity in the colours of their 

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