COMMON DIPPEE. 71 



however, has much faded since the bird was preserved, 

 and I do not, therefore, think that my previously 

 expressed opinion respecting our Norfolk specimens, is 

 thereby upset. Mr. Alfred Newton, to whom I referred 

 this point, is of the same opinion, and remarks — "All 

 birds vary, and they vary so as to resemble allied races or 

 species. Therefore, this may yet be a Scandinavian 

 example, and if so it would only go to prove that in the 

 Scandinavian form the black belly is not a constant 

 feature." On dissecting this last, I found the stomach 

 filled with the remains of insects, nothing else, con- 

 sisting of fragments of the elytra and legs of a little 

 water beetle, and of some small Notonecta. It is 

 also particularly worthy of notice that in almost 

 every instance in which this bird has been obtained in 

 Norfolk, away from the coast, it has been found in 

 the vicinity of the water mills upon our inland streams, 

 attracted no doubt by the noise and splash of the 

 tumbling flushes, the nearest approach to its native 

 waterfalls. 



The great interest taken of late years in the sub- 

 ject of pisciculture, and the experiments made in the 

 artificial rearing of salmon and trout, have also led to 

 enquiries as to the truth or not of the assertion, 

 that the water ouzel is destructive to the ova of 

 fish. I have read with much interest the statements 

 of various writers in the "Field," "Zoologist," and 

 even the ^^ Times" on this point, and am happy to 

 find that the evidence tends most decidedly to the 

 acquittal of this most interesting bird from a charge, 

 which at best only rested on suspicion,* and may be 

 classed with that long list of " vulgar prejudices" which 

 the careful researches of our modern naturalists are fast 

 sweeping away. When the dipper is seen to dive down 

 into the stream with that strange power of submersion 

 which it shares with the rails and the cimning water- 



