86 THE dipper's actions in the water 



fly throiig'h the water. It was an old notion that the Dippers 

 could walk on the beds of streams, and various were the inge- 

 nious speculations to account for such a phenomenon ; for, the 

 specific gravity of their bodies being less than that of water, 

 the puzzle was, how then could they stay below? The fact is, 

 that they can no more walk on the bottom of a stream than St. 

 Peter could walk on the water without some such supernatural 

 assistance as he is alleged to have received. Their flights be- 

 low the surface require as continuous effort to keep down as 

 ordinary aerial flight demands in order that a bird may stay 

 up in the air. It is the same action in an opposite direction, 

 the operation of the gravitating force being reversed. The bird 

 plunges into the water, heading up stream to stem the cur- 

 rent, and flies obliquely downward till it gains the bottom, 

 where it maintains itself by a similar action of the wings, with 

 the body held obliquely head downward. Here the feet may 

 aid it somewhat, by scratching along the ground, or even cling- 

 ing to such chance inequalities of the surface as may be grasped 

 by the toes, but in no sense can this be considered as walking. 

 The moment its exertions are relaxed, it comes to the surface 

 like a cork, and ma^" be swept hel[)lessly along for some dis- 

 tance by the force of the current before regaining itself. The 

 whole action may be likened to that of some of the water-bugs — 

 the IStotonectes for example — which row idly about on their backs 

 with long, feathery oar-like feet, and when alarmed seem to 

 make vigorous efforts to propel themselves obliquely downward. 

 It is one of the endless instances of Nature's delight in para- 

 doxes — her magical way of putting the same thing to the most 

 div^erse uses, with a touch of her cunning wand. Given a 

 brawling brook, too small, clean, and cold to suit any of the 

 water-birds she has on hand, but just the thing for a kind of 

 Thrush, if he can be made to understand it; when presto I 

 Cinclus. The odd little Thrush puts on his water-proof diving 

 apparatus, takes a "header" from the nearest green slippery 

 rock, and likes it so well that he wonders why he never did it 

 before. Divers ways of doing things were evidently open to 

 Thrushes in the beginning — and this is one of them. 



But 1 have got off' the track of legitimate ornithology, I find — 

 much as the Dipper itself is sometimes carried away when the 

 current is a little too strong. There are about a liozen species, 

 including marked geographical races, of this family, the best 

 known of which is the Water Ouzel of Europe. This bird 



