BLACK-BELLIED DIPPER. 103 



constructed by the same pair of birds in the spring of 1855, 

 from which no less than twenty- three eggs had been taken, 

 and on May the 15th the old bird was sitting on two more 

 eggs. A boulder in a stream has been utilised for a nesting 

 site ; another was between two beams of a sluice near 

 Masham [Zool. 1885, p. 25) ; and in 1901 a nest was built 

 behind the Dropping Well at Knaresborough, where every 

 time the old birds left or returned to their home they had to 

 fly through the falling water. Mr. G. A. Widdas found a 

 nest at Malham in 1903 placed in the centre of a small thorn 

 bush about two or three yards from the water's edge. At 

 Hartforth Hall, near Richmond, a Dipper was in the habit of 

 roosting nightly for several weeks on a window sill [Field, 

 20th October 1900). A nest of this species at Sedbergh 

 was ready for occupation on the 26th of February ; one at 

 Richmond contained three eggs as early as March the 15th, 

 and the earliest Yorkshire record for young birds is the 6th 

 of April, on Hambleton. 



There are various local vernacular names. In Teesdale 

 it is Willy Fisher ; at Harewood the Water Drill ; at Settle 

 it is called Douk (whence no doubt the use of the word 

 in place-names) ; and at Loftus-in-Cleveland it is the White- 

 breasted Ouzel, and Water Blacky. Water Crow is a term 

 in general use, while Water Crake is the one used in 

 Willughby's " Ornithology," p. 149. 



BLACK-BELLIED DIPPER. 



Cinclus melanogaster (C. L. Brehni). 



It is not within the province of this work to debate the 

 claims of this bird to specific rank. This much, however, 

 must be said for it, that it is a well marked climatic race — 

 one of those birds to which might be applied the trinomial 

 system of nomenclature so usefully employed by American 

 ornithologists for similar birds in North America, and by 

 whom this form would be styled Cinclus aquaticus melanogaster. 



