^0 British BirdSy 



FAMILY IV.— CINCLID^. 



COMMON DIPPER— ((7/;/^/?/^ aquaticus). 

 Water Ousel, Brook Ousel, Water Crow, Water 

 Piet, Bessy-ducker. — I md^j as well own that I am a 

 little bit " fond " about the Dipper. I dearly love to 

 see him and hear him in my rambles by our mountain 

 becks. So lively, cheery, and jolly, even in the cold 

 winter day, when the mere look of the chilly, shiver- 

 ing stream makes one feel goose-skinny. There he 

 sits at the water edge, and sings like a Robin a little 

 tipsy, and then in he tumbles, in a rollicking sort of 

 way, as you become a little too inquisitive, and emerg- 

 ing a few yards farther down, takes wing, and darts 

 off with his Kinghsher-like flight. One nest some 

 lads belonging to my family found here, was a 

 feather-bed sort of structure of moss and a few 

 feathers, filling up a six-inch square hole in the 

 masonry of a bridge in which one of the scaffold 

 rafters of the workmen had been inserted, there being 

 a small, round hole left in the exposed side for exit 

 and ingress. Others may be seen in cavities in a rock 

 by the water-side ; and one I heard of, if my memory 

 is correct, in Berwickshire, was built amid the stone- 

 work of a water-lead for conducting the waste water 

 away from a mill, and in such a position that the 

 water in its fall projected itself beyond the nest, and 

 formed a kind of arch above it. The old birds in 

 going into or leaving their nest had actually to pass 

 in either from the side or through the interstices of 

 the small cascade. The eggs are five or six in 

 number, and perfectly, purely white. A sad enemy 



