304 THE DIPPER 



seen to adopt a less energetic method than those above described 

 of seeking their food. Individuals have been observed either quietly 

 swimming or simply floating lazily with wings outspread upon the 

 water, pecking among the surface weeds. 1 This spreading of the 

 wings as a means of support, which is frequently adopted by our 

 dipper when not feeding, and possibly at times when feeding, is 

 not peculiar to the species, though, as far as I am aware, no other 

 species makes use of it except in accidental circumstances. I once 

 saw a chaffinch fledgling, on first quitting the nest, flutter into a 

 pond, which it did with a cheerful confidence born of the complete 

 ignorance natural to its age. It did not, however, find the new 

 experience an agreeable one. Keeping its wings spread open upon 

 the water, it used them to move itself towards the bank, which 

 it approached near enough to enable me to grasp its wet and 

 bedraggled little person and put it to dry in the sun. It soon 

 recovered sufficiently to insist vociferously upon the immediate 

 attendance of its parents with restoratives. The behaviour of this 

 young chaffinch in the water would probably be that of any non- 

 aquatic flying bird, and is only what one would expect. The 

 originality of the dipper consists in its having turned the accidental 

 into the habitual. 



The dipper occasionally indulges in a fish-diet. It has been seen 

 to catch trout-fry, diving into the water after its victim, pursuing it, 

 and finally dragging it from under some stone to take it out upon 

 the rocks, bang it lustily on the same two or three times, then 

 swallow it either whole, if small enough, or after tearing it in two. 

 But it regards fish much as we regard lobster or pate de foie gras as a 

 luxury to be indulged in rarely and with discretion. It is a luxury 

 that it may very well be allowed, for any destruction it does among 

 the fry is, according to the authorities, compensated for probably a 

 hundredfold by its ravages among the insects injurious to the spawn. 

 The wise preserver of salmon and trout will do well to regard the 



1 Zoologisches Garten, 1880, pp. 65-70 (K. Miiller) ; J. B. Bailly, Ornithologie de la Savoie. 



