328 



THE AMERICAN WATER OUZEL. 



repeatedly for the sole purpose of shaking its wet plumage over the 

 mossy nest. 



Unless we mistake, the bird in the first picture is about to visit a nest 

 behind the waterfall, and of such a nest Mr. John Keast Lord says: "I once 

 found the nest of the American Dipper built rmiongst the roots of a large 

 cedar-tree that had floated down the stream and got jammed against the mill- 

 dam of the Hudson Bay Company's old grist mill, at Fort Coh'ille, on a trilni- 

 tary to the upper Columbia River. The water rushing over a jutting ledge 

 of rocks, formed a small cascade, that fell like a yeW of water before the dip- 

 per's nest: and it was curious to see the l)inls dash thru the waterfall rather 

 than go in at tlie sides, and in that 

 way get behind it. For hours I have 

 sat and watched the busy pair, pass- 

 ing in and out thru the fall, witli as 

 much apparent ease as an ecjuestrian 

 performer jumps thru a hoop covered 

 with tissue paper. The nest was in- 

 geniously constructed to prevent the 

 spray from wetting the interior, the 

 moss being so worked over the en- 

 trance as to form an admirable ver- 

 andah." 



Of the nest shown in the accom- 

 panying illustration, Mr. A. W. An- 

 thony says that it was completed un- 

 der unusual difticulties. A party of 

 survevors, requiring to bridge a 

 stream in eastern Oregon, first laid 

 a squared stringer. This an Ouzel Taken in Oregon 

 promptly seized upon, and in token of piwto by a. if. Anthony. 

 proprietorship began to heap up moss. an u.nsheltered nest. 



This arrangement did not comport 



with business and the nest foundations were brushed aside on two successive 

 mornings. A spell of bad weather intervening, the men returned to their work 

 some days later to find the completed nest, as shown, completed but still 

 unoccupied. It was necessarv to remove this also, but judge of the feelings 

 of the surveyors when, upon the following morning, they found a single 

 white egg resting upim the bare timber! 



