146 BIRD BIOGRAPHIES 



I run oft to the mountains of wild Wales, 

 and in a delightful little inn, surrounded 

 with hills and tumbling streams, I have 

 spent some of my happiest days. 



Let us follow the stream up to the 

 hills. As we wander along, climbing 

 over rough boulders and going carefully 

 over marshy ground, the stream gets 

 quickly smaller, and before we have gone 

 three miles it is not a yard wide, and 

 not very much farther on, amongst a 

 tract of rushes and coarse mountain 

 grass, is its source. But the Dipper is 

 not up here ; we must go to where the 

 water falls over the rocks, and runs 

 tossing and tumbling over stones, or to 

 where it rushes through deep gullies, and 

 there we are sure to find him. On this 

 stream there are several pairs, but they 

 keep to their own stretches of river. One 

 nest was actually underneath the falling 

 water of a fall about ten feet high, and 

 the birds when they went to their nest 



