175 
disturb them, they have a ridiculous habit of plopping out of the 
nest head over heels, and dropping plump into the water. 
The building of the nest, in which both birds assist, is com- 
pleted in about a fortnight. When this is going on, you may now 
and then chance to see them at work; though most of it, I fancy, 
is done early in the morning. But if you are favoured witha view, 
it is an instructive sight to see them struggling under clumps of 
moss, almost as big as themselves, one of them often waiting with 
a piece of moss in its beak until the other is finished; or perhaps 
you see one flying past you with a dried oak leaf in its mouth, 
which somehow reminds you of the old nursery tale of the ‘Babes 
in the Wood.” 
The nest is often placed in curious situations: I have seen it 
underneath bridges, by the side of a waterfall, and once under a 
ledge of wall by the side of a mill wheel, which did not seem to 
disturb the birds in the least. I once met with a curious incident 
in the nesting of the Dipper. I was wending my way by the side 
of a fell beck, beneath the shadow of Lade Pot, in Westmorland, 
one wet June day four years ago, in quest of a nest of the wild 
duck. Coming to a part of the valley where it suddenly narrowed, 
_ leaving only a rocky channel for the water to find its way through, 
I noticed a pair of Dippers, evidently by their cries and motions in 
distress. On arriving at the spot, I soon found the ‘cause of their 
_lamentations. The nest had been placed in a slight cavity on a 
ledge of rock, the rock from above the ledge where the nest was 
placed sloped considerably backwards, and was covered with loose 
_ shingle from the bank above. Owing, I suppose, to the wet 
: weather, one of these pieces of shingle had slid down over the nest, 
_ and, resting on the ledge, had completely stopped the entrance. 
_ Carefully removing the obstruction, I straightened the nest up a bit, 
and found it contained two eggs unbroken. On removing to some 
distance, the pair of Dippers came back, and one of them, after a 
¥ short scrutiny, entered the nest, and finding, I suppose, all right, 
_ they went off with their usual Chit! Chit! down stream. 
To the inexperienced eye, the nest of the Dipper is not good 
_ to find, readily passing itself off for a clump of moss attached to 
we. an < _ -. ni, 
