328 
THE AMERICAN WATER OUZEL. 
repeatedly for the sole purpose of shaking its wet plumage over the 
mossy nest. 
Unless we mistake, the bird in the first picture is about to visit a nest 
behind the waterfall, and of such a nest Mr. John Keast Lord says: “I once 
found the nest of the American Dipper built amongst the roots of a large 
cedar-tree that had floated down the stream and got jammed against the mill- 
dam of the Hudson Bay Company’s old grist mill, at Fort Colville, on a tribu- 
tary to the upper Columbia River. The water rushing over a jutting ledge 
of rocks, formed a small cascade, that fell like a veil of water before the dip- 
per’s nest; and it was curious to see the birds dash thru the waterfall rather 
than go in at the sides, and in that 
way get behind it. For hours I have 
sat and watched the busy pair, pass- 
ing in and out thru the fall, with as 
much apparent ease as an equestrian 
performer jumps thru a hoop covered 
with tissue paper. The nest was in- 
geniously constructed to prevent the 
spray from wetting the interior, the 
moss being so worked over the en- 
trance as to form an admirable ver- 
andah.”’ 
Of the nest shown in the accom- 
panying illustration, Mr. A. W. An- 
thony Says that it was completed un- 
der unusual difficulties. A party of 
surveyors, requiring tc bridge a 
stream in eastern Oregon, first laid 
a squared stringer: This an Owzel ~ roten in Oregon. 
promptly seized upon, and in token of — Photo by 4. W. Anthony. 
proprietorship began to heap up moss. AN UNSHELTERED NEST. 
This arrangement did not comport 
with business and the nest foundations were brushed aside on two successive 
mornings. <A spell of bad weather intervening, the men returned to their work 
some days later to find the completed nest, as shown, completed but still 
unoccupied. It was necessary to remove this also, but judge of the feelings 
of the surveyors when, upon the following morning, they fotnd a single 
white egg resting upon the bare timber! 
