DIPPER 



Cinclus aquaticus 



HE Dipper is a bird of the rapid streams. In Great 

 Britain it is chiefly found in the mountainous districts 

 of England and Wales, and throughout Scotland and 

 Ireland it is a common bird wherever the waters are 

 rapid enough, either in the wilds of the north or in the 

 southern counties. 



The haunts of the Dipper are confined to the swift 



rapidly-flowing rocky mountain streams. Here it is found throughout the 

 year, and is quite as active when the rocks are draped with ice as in the 

 burning heat of the summer sun. The roaring mountain streams never freeze, 

 and hence the bird is always able to obtain its food. It is not a migratory 

 bird in the British Isles, but the young birds are driven by their parents from 

 districts which become too crowded. On the barest of mountain-sides, where 

 the little stream leaps down the rocky glen among jagged rocks where not 

 a tree or shrub grows, the Dipper is just as much at home as it is where the 

 birches and mountain ashes grow among the clefts in the rock overhanging the 

 stream which wanders down some wooded glen. It is a bird of great activity, 

 and flies with rapid unswerving flight, now landing on some boulder round 

 which the waters boil and splash, now alighting on some grassy bank, or 

 diving into the boiling water, anon reappearing some distance down the 

 stream. The Dipper is an expert at diving, sometimes swimming along 

 under the water, aided by its wings, and searching the little stones at the 

 bottom of the stream for the caddis-worms on which it feeds. Unlike the 

 Kingfisher, the Dipper never dives into the water with a sudden plunge, 

 but either wades into it or drops into it from some convenient stone. Now 

 and then you may see it splashing about in some rapid part of the stream, 

 as if it were trying to reach something at the bottom and was overpowered 

 by the current. 



VOL. in. 2 P 145 



