100 BULLETIN 195, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Henderson (1908), to which the reader is referred, as his account is 

 too long to be included here. 



Aretas A. Saunders tells me that, in Montana, "some dipper nests, 

 built on rocks, are without a bottom or lining, the eggs being deposited 

 on the rocks, the nest being merely a roof, side walls and the usual 

 front entrance, made of woven moss." 



Samuel F. Kathbun refers in his notes to a dipper's nest in an un- 

 usual location : 



It was placed on the sloping top of a stump, and at a height of three feet 

 ahove the surface of a small, swiftly running stream in the mountain foothills. 

 There was a cavity of some size in the top of the stump, and this was completely 

 filled with a mass of fresh moss, some of which had been worljed into the under 

 side of the nest proper to aid in its attachment. The wliole affair resembled a 

 roughly-shaped ball of green moss on the top of the stump, which was in phiin 

 view in an open spot just within the water's edge. But since there was a 

 considerable growth of moss on the side of the stump, it helped to mal^e the 

 mass of moss less noticeable. 



Mr. Saunders writes to me of another well-concealed nest : "There 

 was a small waterfall about 2 feet high and near it I saw a dipper 

 with food in its bill. There was moss on the rocks all around the 

 fall, but I saw no nest. Then the bird went to a vertical wall of moss 

 near the fall, and evidently fed young. When it had gone, I investi- 

 gated and the moment my hand touched the wall of moss several young 

 popped out of a hole in the moss into the pool below the fall. The 

 nest, from external appearance, was merely a hole in the moss wall, 

 back of which there was a niche in the rock." 



Eggs. — The American dipper lays from three to six eggs in a set, 

 usually four or five. These are ovate in shape, sometimes slightly 

 elongated and often somewhat pointed at the small end. They are 

 pure, dead white and entirely unmarked. The measurements of 50 

 eggs average 25.9 by 18.5 millimeters ; the eggs showing the four ex- 

 tremes measure 28.5 by 19.1, 26.2 by 19.5, 24.0 by 19.0, and 25.0 by 17.0 

 millimeters. 



Young, — According to J. A. Steiger (1940), "the female alone 

 covers the eggs during incubation, and about the thirteenth day 

 hatching occurs. * * * After about 18 days of rapid growth, 

 the fledglings file from the crowded nest. Amidst raucous call- 

 ing, the experimenting young follow the creek. Flying at short dis- 

 tances, the parents entice their charges from rock to rock, seeming 

 to encourage them to greater and braver acts." 



Dr. A. H. Cordier (1927) built a platform within 6 feet of a 

 water ouzel's nest, from which the following observations were 

 made: "The female did most of the feeding. * * * On one oc- 

 casion when my head was within 18 inches of the nest, the female 

 lit on the face of a slick rock 3 feet from the nest, but only for a 



