THS FOOT OF SIAKOD 101 



with something in his beak some caddis or shellfish 

 that he has found among the stones. How he contrives 

 to make his way so easily beneath the surface is still a 

 matter of dispute. It is considered by some naturalists 

 as proved that the dipper actually walks along, clutching 

 with his feet the stones upon the bottom. But some 

 anglers who have watched him well maintain that he 

 only swims under the water like a dab-chick or a rail. 

 The dipper leaves his perch again, swimming like a tiny 

 copy of a moorhen across a belt of smoother water. 

 Diving again and again, sometimes resting on a stone 

 below the surface, half his body still submerged, some- 

 times taking refuge on a boulder high and dry above 

 the stream, at length he settles on another rock, crouch- 

 ing down as if for quiet meditation. But now from 

 under- the bank flies out a comrade in pursuit. The 

 drowsing figure on the stone wakens instantly to life. 

 Before the new-comer can reach him he is off, and a 

 second later has gone under with a splash. When he 

 comes up, a few yards away, the two birds roll over and 

 over and splash and frolic like a pair of sparrows on the 

 dusty highway. 



Tired at length, one player flies swiftly up the stream. 

 The other swims across to a quiet backwater under the 

 shore, where, upon a stone in the dark shadow of the 

 alder bushes, he stands long motionless, his white breast 

 mirrored in a quivering band of light like the image of a 

 sinking moon lengthened on a rippling sea. 



And when at length the dipper is asleep in his hollow 

 in the bank; when laughing woodpeckers are silent, 



