300 THE DIPPER 



THE DIPPER 

 [R B. KIRKMAN] 



If you will walk quietly along the banks of a rapidly flowing brook 

 or shallow river, choosing one well strewn with moss-clad rocks, you 

 may chance to see, perched in mid-stream on some jutting boulder, a 

 small bird, not as large as a thrush, but much more rotund in its build, 

 and having, at a distance, all the appearance of being clad in evening 

 dress, white shirt front and black suit complete, but with the coat- 

 tails unconventionally truncated and projecting stiffly in a horizontal 

 or upward direction. Watch this portly little body and you will see 

 him curtsy this way and that way, with downward jerks of the tail, 

 and then, if not alarmed, wade perhaps into the water up to his white 

 front or even up to his neck, when he will sink and disappear beneath 

 the surface, to emerge shortly afterwards none the worse, and showing 

 no trace of immersion except a few shining beads of water that roll 

 like quicksilver off his back. 



The performer of this feat is the dipper or water-ouzel, the former 

 name having apparently been given it in 1804 by the author of Bewick's 

 British Birds, from the curtsy or dipping motion already alluded to, 

 and not, as is generally supposed, because of its habit of dipping or 

 diving into the water. 1 To give it the name on account of the latter 

 habit would, moreover, be to lay stress on what is not a marked peculi- 

 arity of the bird. It does dive into the water, especially after alighting 

 on its surface, and also when floating or swimming, 2 but, when wading 

 in, it frequently, if not habitually, submerges itself without any visible 

 dip. " We have," writes Montagu, " seen the water-ouzel walk into the 

 water, and, as it were, sink beneath the surface, as if its specific gravity 



1 Newton, Dictionary of Birds, p. 151. 



2 Cf. Macgillivray, British Birds, vol. ii.; J. A. Harvie-Brown and T. E. Buckley, Fauna of 

 Moray Basin, vol. i.; D'Urban and Mathew, Birds of Devon, p. 31. 



