Ag BRITISH BIRDS, THEIR EGGS AND NESTS. 
ture, almost as much as in its site. Moss, old and new, bents, 
straws, twigs, hairs, feathers, all are used. It is an arnusing 
little bird, and pays many feeding visits to its young, as is the 
case with all insect-feeding birds. The eggs are four or five in 
number, of dull white, tinged with blue, and spotted with faint 
‘red. It only visits us to breed here.—Lig. 6, plate IT. 
38. PIED FLYCATCHER—(Muscicapa atricupilla.) 
Coldfinch.—A rare bird in some localities, and not an abundant 
one inany. ‘Thenest is loosely made of small roots, bents, grass, 
moss, hair, or some such material, in a hole, usually in pollard 
trees, or such as have decayed from natural causes, but some- 
times also ina hole ina wall or other building. In it may be 
found four to eight eggs of a uniform light blue colour.—/¥g. 7, 
plate IT. 
JIT.—MERULIDZ. 
39. COMMON DIPPER—(Cinclus aquaticus.) 
Water-ouzel, Brook-ouzel, Water-crow, Water-piet, Bessy- 
ducker.—I may as well own that I am a little bié “fond” about 
the Dipper. I dearly love to see him and hear him in my ram- 
bles by our mountain becks. So lively, cheery, and jolly, even 
in the cold winter day, when the mere look of the chilly, shivering 
stream makes one feel goose-skinny. There he sits at the water 
edge, and sings like a Rovin a little tipsy, and then in he tum- 
bles, ina rollicking sort of way, as you become a little too 
inquisitive, and emerging a few yards further down, takes wing, 
and darts off vith his Kingfisher-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- 
