COMMON DIPPER. 253 
CINCLUS AQUATICUS. 
COMMON DIPPER. 
(Pirate 11.) 
Tringa merula aquatica, Briss. Orn. v. p. 252 (1760). 
Sturnus cinclus, Linn, Syst. Nat. i, p. 290 (1766). 
Turdus cinclus (Linn.), Lath. Ind. Orn, i. p. 848 (1790). 
Turdus gularis, Lath. Ind. Orn. Suppl. p. x1 (1801, juv.). 
Cinclus aquaticus, Bechst. Orn. Tasch. p. 206 (1802); et auctorum plurimorum— 
Meyer, Temminck, Naumann, Gould, Bonaparte, Schlegel, Salvin, Newton, Dresser) 
Sharpe, &c. 
Aquatilis cinclus (Linn.), Montag. Orn. Dict. Suppl. (1813). 
Cinclus europeeus, Leach, Syst. Cat. Brit. Mus. p. 21 (1816), 
Hydrobata cinclus (Linn.), Gray, List Gen. B. p. 35 (1841). 
The Dipper, in spite of sundry dark tales and grave charges, is almost 
universally the angler’s favourite—a bird of the stream, from its birth 
amongst the peat and heather high up the mountains, throughout its wander- 
ing course of fall and pool and rapid. Its distribution in Great Britain is 
chiefly confined to the mountainous districts of the west and north of 
England, including Wales, and throughout Scotland, extending to the Outer 
Hebrides and the Orkneys, but not to the Shetland Isles. In Ireland it is 
found in similar localities to those in Britain—mountain-streams and wild 
uplands, its distribution being affected by the nature of the country. 
Wherever the waters are wild enough, either in the countries of the south 
or the upland wilds and mountain-districts of the north, the Dipper is 
pretty sure to be commonly found, naturally becoming much more frequent 
in the Highlands of Scotland, where it is provincially known to a very 
great extent as the “ Kingfisher.” 
The Dipper in a more or less modified form appears to occur throughout 
the Palzarctic Region and the Himalayas wherever rocky mountain-streams 
are to be found. Modern evolutionists seem to have come to the con- 
clusion that the successive stages of the development of the individual are 
more or less an epitome of the history of the species. If we accept this 
theory, the attempt to interpret the changes of plumage which our Dipper 
undergoes would probably lead to the conclusion that the genus Cinclus 
originated in Central Asia, whence it spread east and west to North America 
and Europe. The original form probably differed little from typical 
examples of C. leucogaster, which we may accept as the slightly changed 
descendants of the Preglacial Dippers of that region. I say slightly 
changed, because the young in first plumage, not only of our Dipper, but of 
all the known Dippers of the world, besides retaining the nearly white colour 
of the whole of the underparts, show traces of dark tips to the feathers, which 
