42 THE RIVER-SIDE NATURALIST. 



fore, this opportunity of stating that the bird runs about 

 rapidly after the fashion of a starling. It jumps or hops 

 a considerable distance; it flies well, and swims like a 

 duck. I have six of them altogether. The birds are from 

 two nests one contained three, the other four birds." 



This question of eating fish is, without doubt, an impor- 

 tant one, and however much we admire the bird, the weight 

 of evidence is against it. 



Mr. A. D. Bartlett, in the Field, says : " However un- 

 willing I may be to render some of my pets to be regarded 

 as the enemies of fishermen, the truth must be told. In 

 May 1869 I obtained my first living water-ouzel. Since 

 that time I have had upwards of twenty of these birds. 

 Some of them I have reared from the nest, and I fed -them 

 upon boiled meal-worms, the larvae of the caddis-fly, and 

 other insect food ; but as soon as they were able to feed 

 themselves and took to the water, they caught and fed upon 

 very small fish, especially young minnows. I found them 

 rather expensive pets, having to provide for a family of 

 four, as they caught and devoured several dozen daily, and 

 seemed to prefer live fish to all other food. I am not 

 pleased to confess this, and I hope it may not cause the 

 birds to be unmercifully killed, as I feel sure that these 

 birds are useful, feeding as they do upon insects as soon 

 as the young fish are too large for their tiny throats." 



As to whether they take spawn, a correspondent signing 

 himself " Nahanite " writes : 



" SIR, Some thirty years or more this subject was very 

 carefully considered by the members of the now defunct 

 Dublin Natural History Society. The birds were carefully 

 watched when at work on the spawning-beds, and after- 

 wards shot and dissected, and as well as I can now recol- 

 lect in no case was spawn found, or if there was, very 

 little; while numerous caddis- worms and other insects 

 destructive to spawn were found to be what they had been 

 collecting, these depredators frequenting the beds to destroy 

 the spawn, and the ouzels going there to devour them." 



The nest is somewhat like a wren's nest, only a little 

 larger, and chiefly made of moss growing in the locality, 



