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thorough believer in it. G. H. Adams says “it is simply absurd to 
believe what Buffon and others said about it—that it could walk 
without effort at the bottom of a stream, as though on dry land.” 
Montague describes the appearance of the bird when under water 
as “tumbling about in a very extraordinary manner, with its head 
downward, as if picking up something, and at the same time using 
great exertions with both legs and wings.” Yarrell says, “when 
searching for food it does not proceed very far under water, but 
soon reappears in the immediate neighbourhood of where it sank, 
when it either dives again, or rises on the wing, to drop somewhere 
else in the stream.” He had no faith in the bird’s walking at the 
bottom of the water; but as he never saw the Dipper alive, and 
only judged from the anatomy of it, I am afraid his evidence is too 
much theory for us to accept. Sir William Jardine, who writes a 
very beautiful article on the Water Ouzel, provokingly says nothing 
of its walking powers. Macgillvray also disbelieved in this faculty 
of the Dippers, as did Charles Waterton, who is worth quoting 
more fully on the subject: ‘‘This is the bird which has given rise 
to so much controversy, and whose supposed subaquatic pranks 
have set the laws of gravity at defiance, by breaking through the 
general mandate, which has ordained that things lighter than water 
shall rise towards its surface, and things which are heavier shall 
sink beneath it. If the Water Ouzel can walk on the ground at 
the bottom of the water, then indeed, we may exclaim with the 
poet :— 
‘All Nature’s laws will tumble and decay, 
And e’en the world itself will lose its way.’ 
And further on he affirms that the observer’s eyes are deceived, 
and give him false information, when in tracing the bird’s down- 
ward course underneath the water he fancies he sees it walking. 
Morris, on the other hand, writes: ‘That this bird has the 
power of walking at the bottom of the water, is an established fact. 
The argument against its being able to do so is, that to the 
reasoning powers of some persons it does not seem possible. Its 
feet are admirably adapted for holding on to the stones over which 
