The American Dipper or Water Ouzel 



{Cinclus mexicanus unicolor) 

 By C. Hart Merriam 



No one who visits the mountainous region of western North America should 

 fail to visit some of the mountain streams with their cascades and pools and there 

 study the antics of the American Dipper or Water Ouzel. The song of this happy 

 bird — voiced even in winter — is well worthy the effort made to hear it. The 

 Dipper loves only the mountains ; it is not a bird of the level plains and it may 

 almost be said that is never visits these lowlands, even in the severest weather. 

 Its country extends from the Youkon Valley, on the north, to Guatemala, on the 

 south, and in the United States it may be found from near the Pacific ocean 

 eastward to the base of the eastern slope of the Rocky mountains. Mr. Lord, in 

 his "Birds of Oregon and Washington," says : "We all ought to know the thrice 

 fascinating ways of this bird, which belongs exclusively to our side of the 

 continent." 



Our own country is not the only one that is favored with this interesting 

 bird, which belongs to a remarkable group that has sorely puzzled the ornitholo- 

 gist. He has been unable to place it in any family of birds with other species. 

 The Dippers form a distinct family (Cinclidse), which seems to have no very near 

 allies. There are perhaps ten or twelve species which inhabit the mountainous 

 regions of the northern hemisphere. 



The name Dipper was first given to this bird by the English ornithologist, 

 Bewick, and refers to its habit of standing on some perch and tilting its body in 

 such a manner as to give a nodding motion to its head. Bewick himself says of 

 the Dipper : "It may be seen perched on the top of a stone in the midst of the 

 torrent, in a continual dipping motion, or short courtesy often repeated." Probably 

 because of its habit of seeking food in the water, as the common crow does upon 

 the land, the Dipper is sometimes called the Water-crow. 



The Dipper has been called a "dumpy" bird, but it is surely the opposite of 

 what that word ought to mean. It is a bird of great energy and activity and in the 

 romantic places that it inhabits it seems to delight in leading an observer to fol- 

 lowing it along the banks of some canyon stream. Chirping, it will hop from stone 

 to stone as the observer follows. With a jerking motion of the tail it will con- 

 tinue leading until it reaches a pool, perhaps formed at the base of a cascade at the 

 upper end of the chasm. Here it will deliberately wade into the water and dis- 

 appear, to reappear some distance away, and probably on the opposite side of the 

 pool. -Mr. Lord says: "It is truly a 'queer' bird, and if one did not know its 

 habits and should some day see him plunge into a swift mountain stream and 

 disappear, he might su])pose he had witnessed a case of desperate bird-suicide. 

 But did he know this odd creature's ways, he would look for it to come up and 

 land on a rock at some point quite well below its place of plunge." Not only does 

 the Dipper enter the water for the purpose of gathering food from the bottom of 



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