302 THE DIPPER 



eyes the dipper appeared "to tumble about in a very extraordinary 

 manner with its head downward, as if pecking something." Most 

 other observers lay stress on the difficulty it appears to experience in 

 keeping at the bottom, but Macgillivray, who paid special attention 

 to the species, in commenting on Montagu, remarks that " this tum- 

 bling is observed only when it is engaged in a strong current, and its 

 appearance is greatly magnified by the unequal refraction caused by 

 the varying inequalities of the surface of the water." A further com- 

 mentary is supplied by the following note of an ornithologist, Mr. 

 Thomas Garnett, writing as long ago as 1834 : " It (the dipper) walked 

 in, began to turn over the pebbles with its bill, rooting almost like a 

 pig, and it seemed to have no difficulty whatever in keeping at the 

 bottom, at all depths, when I could see it. ... The awkward tumbling, 

 shuffling wriggle is occasioned by the incessant motion of its head as 

 it turns over the gravel." The italics are mine. 1 



It is possible that the degree of effort exerted by the dipper may 

 depend not only upon the strength of the current, but also upon 

 whether the bird is working up or down stream, for there is evidence 

 to show that it does both, though more usually the former. 2 



The dipper by no means limits its search for food chiefly aquatic 

 insects and small molluscs to the bottom of streams. It may often 

 be seen scrambling with somewhat awkward gait along the edge of 

 the water under the bank, pecking here and there. It is perhaps 

 this scrambling over the irregularities of the ground along the foot of 

 the bank that misled Macgillivray into a disparagement of the walking 

 .and: running powers of the bird. He writes of it progressing by "a 

 -of leaping motion," and affirms that its short legs and long 

 claws are very ill adapted for running. 3 But any one who 

 watches one of these birds making its way over stones or the surface 



1 Field, 1889, vol. Ixxiii. 801, 886; Montagu, Dictionary of Birds; Macgillivray, History of 

 Birds, vol. ii.; Mr. Thomas Garnett in the Magazine of Natural History, 1834, quoted in 

 Mitchell's Birds of Lancashire, edited by H. Saunders. 



2 Field, 1889, Ixxiii. 801, 886. Macgillivray (op. cit.) observes that " it generally moves against 

 the stream." 



3 Macgillivray, History of Birds ; and an article by the same in the Naturalist, 1837, p. 108. 



