THE WATER OUZEL. 35 



Family CINCLID^ — Dippers. 



19. THE WATER OUZEL. 

 CINCLUS MEXICANUS S-Muinson. 

 American Dipper; Water Turkey (Nevada^. 



This strange little bird is found in the high mountains of west- 

 ern North America, from Alaska to Mexico. It finds food for 

 itself and young on the bottom of swift alpine streams, and half- 

 walks, half-swims about under the water to obtain it. I remem- 

 ber watching these birds near Mt. Lincoln, Colorado, and again 

 among the lofty Wind River peaks, with a degree of interest 

 which few other birds could arouse. It is not very timid. The 

 near presence of men at work in a saw-mill or at their gold- 

 cradles does not seem to alarm it. ISIany delightful biogra- 

 phies of this bird have been written, as also of its European 

 brother which it closely resembles, but they must be passed by. 



The dipper's nest is a splendid piece of bird-architecture. 

 There are many descriptions extant and the nests themselves are 

 not scarce in public collections, although the eggs seem to be. 



The nests are variously situated, but always in a nook or crev- 

 ice near the water. They are elegant balls of green moss, 

 "round and bossy in outline, with a neatly arched opening near 

 the bottom, somewhat like an old-fashioned brick oven, or Hot- 

 tentot's hut." Dr. Cooper describes one : " It was built under 

 the shelving roots of an immense arbor-vitas tree that had floated 

 over and rested in a slanting position against a mill-dam. The 

 floor was made of small twigs, and bare ; the sides and roof arch- 

 ing over it like an oven, and formed of moss projecting above so 

 as to shelter the opening. This was large enough to admit the 

 hand, and the inside was very capacious." It contained young 

 on July 5, — the second brood in the same nest that summer. 

 About half a mile from Mystic Lake, Montana, in 1872, 

 W. H. Holmes noticed a dipper repeatedly fly through the fall- 

 ing water of a cascade, and after diligent search found behind 

 the waterfall a nest on a narrow shelf of rock so near the fall 

 that the outside was constantly wet with spray, while the in- 

 terior was dry and warm. The birds entered it by a small 



