DIPPER. 53 
M. Wood has also found the bird nesting in this 
locality. 
Nests of the Dipper, which we have examined on the 
Goyt, consisted of a rather deep cup, made of grass 
stems and blades of a Carex, enveloped by a spherical 
covering of moss or woven grass stems, and with a 
small entrance below the median line. The inner 
nests were lined with a thick layer of dead beech- 
leaves, intermingled with a few of oak, ivy, and 
bramble. The outer nest usually harmonises with its 
environment, being constructed of green moss when 
placed on wet moss-grown rocks or beneath dripping 
water, and of dead grasses when built against a neutral- 
tinted face of bare rock. The strongly contrasted 
black-and-white plumage renders the bird far less con- 
spicuous than might be imagined amongst the lights 
and shades of the broken rocks and tumbling water of 
its haunts. 
In spite of persecution, the Dipper resorts persis- 
tently to the same nesting-site year after year, and 
more than one brood is often reared in the same 
season. In a nest at Middlewood, Mr. K. H. Jones 
found fully fledged young on April 21st, 1897, and the 
first egg of a second clutch on May 3rd. 
Even before they can fly the young birds are quite 
at home in the water. We have seen barely fledged 
nestlings, when alarmed, scramble out of the nest and 
drop into the swiftly flowing Goyt. Making their 
way beneath the surface to the opposite bank, they 
emerged some yards downstream, and sought shelter 
among the stones. 
