THE KINGFISHEE 67 



night in the woods would be devoid of much of 

 its appealing mystery ; without the salmon, our 

 rivers would have far less charm than now for 

 angler and naturalist alike ; and without the 

 humble-bee, the summer meadows in the swelter- 

 ing heat of noon would seem silent and deserted. 

 Similarly, the dipper the cheery, restless, 

 white-breasted robin of the brook is so com- 

 pletely at one with his surroundings that in his 

 absence the gorge, the glen, and the low water- 

 meadows by the mill would lose not a little of 

 their own special attractiveness. Though the 

 dipper is as much at home on the main river 

 as on the tributary stream, he is more particularly 

 associated in our mind with the dams and the 

 leats and the purling shallows, over which the 

 branches of the arching alders meet, than with 

 the wide, uninterrupted sweep of salmon-pool 

 and trout-reach where, as he stands at the water's 

 brink, he may be mistaken, from the opposite 

 bank, for a white pebble thrown among a number 

 of stones brown with sun-bleached moss and 

 grey with the natural hue of the river-bed. 



I. THE KINGFISHER 



I have not found it so difficult to observe the 

 habits of the dipper as those of the kingfisher, 

 the heron, and the water-rail. Often, by acci- 

 dent, I come across the kingfisher perched on a 



