520 : PASSERIFORMES CHAP. 
The sexes are alike, but the young are spotted. Both plumage 
and down are close and nearly impervious to water. 
These birds range throughout the Palaearctic Region, just 
reaching the southern 
slopes of the Hima- 
layas, China, and For- 
mosa. One species 
occupies the Atlas 
Mountains, while 
others occur along 
the heights of West- 
ern America, and the 
Andes southwards to 
Peru. Individuals of 
a dark form from 
Northern Europe 
occasionally stray to 
Britain, but such mi- 
eration is exceptional. 
Dippers frequent 
rapid streams in hill- 
country, which seldom freeze, and appear as cheery in winter as 
in summer; their flight is powerful, rapid, and direct, with quick 
wing-strokes and sudden descent ; their cry upon the wing is loud 
and clear, their song when stationary Wren-like. They sit on 
stones in the water, bobbing up and down and jerking their tails, 
while they use both legs and wings below the surface, whither they 
dive noiselessly in search of insects, their larvae and pupae, or 
molluses. Fish-spawn has not been found in the stomach. The 
domed, but flattened, nest is composed chiefly of moss or grass, with 
an inner bed of dry materials, which are generally oak or beech 
leaves, though in India sometimes ferns and roots. It is affixed 
to rock-faces, ledges, or boulders in streams, placed in crevices of 
masonry, or even built in holes in the soil or in débris caught on 
bushes, common situations being behind water-falls, under bridges, 
or beside mill-wheels. C. a/bicollis seems to make an open fabric 
in Italy. From four to seven dull white eggs are laid very early 
in the season, two or even three sets being often produced— 
occasionally in the same nest. This the young sometimes leave by 
the end of March, being able to swim before they are fully fledged. 
Fic. 115.—Dipper. Cinclus aquaticus. x 45. 
