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feat actually done, was one fine morning in early spring seven 
years ago. I was leaning on the parapet of a small bridge crossing 
a burn in Northumberland, when who should march from under- 
neath the bridge but Master Cinclus, very busy indeed in catering 
for the wants of the inner bird, too busy to see me taking notes of 
his doings, some fifteen or sixteen feet above him. He searched 
that burn very carefully downwards—shallows, pools, and streams, 
taking all in, till a bend in its course hid him from my view. 
Sometimes he was immersed clean over-head, other times with but 
part of his back out, and again having his feet but barely 
covered, yet at the same time never offering to seek his food on 
the dry gravel bed. 
Another time, on a bright June day, two years ago, I was 
lying on the top of a steep precipitous rock overhanging a favourite 
fishing stream of the Dipper’s in Croglin Water, a tributary of the 
_ Eden, surrounded by the rosy waxen flowers of the bilberry, inter- 
mingled with the light green fronds of the oak fern, and with a 
_ cushion of moss beneath, making such a couch as Sylvia might 
have envied. As if to gratify my wishes (I was lying in wait for 
_ him), Cinclus dropped right into the water beneath, there some 
six to nine inches deep, and commenced working his way up 
stream, knocking the pebbles right and left for about two yards 
q before rising again to the surface. 
F Another time, and again the scene changes, nel I am making 
_ my way homewards through the Rose Holmes, by the river Caldew, 
on one of those dull raw November days which seem to hang so 
heavily on one’s spirits, when my attention was attracted by a 
Dipper dipping, as is his wont, on a large stone in the middle of 
the shallow stream. On watching him a short time, I found he 
p was busy making short excursions into the water on all sides of 
returning after each trip to his favourite resting place on the 
Stone, and doing a little at the arrangement of his plumage before 
starting afresh. Taking advantage of the few seconds he was 
