THE DIPPER'S NEST 96 



in the task of feeding the four feeble nestlings 

 lighter than that of providing for the hen's 

 apparently insatiable appetite, while the hen 

 on her part found a welcome relief from her 

 long confinement in the comparatively light 

 labour now falling to her share. 



But holidays are brief in early summer, and 

 before a fortnight had passed the dippers learned 

 that family cares pressed heavily as the appetites 

 of the nestlings increased. Seldom venturing 

 far from home, they obtained food chiefly from 

 the dam by the sluice and from crevices in 

 the old wall a few yards further down the stream, 

 At last, one morning, I ascertained that events 

 had reached a crisis. The young birds, though 

 unable to fly, had left the nest and were wander- 

 ing shyly here and there among the ripples ; 

 while the parent dippers, with much ado, flew 

 hither and thither, and dipped and dived and 

 splattered in the stream, with an air of vast 

 self-importance, as they taught their inquisitive 

 offspring how and where to seek their food, and 

 how to hide when a cruel hawk sailed overhead. 



Another fortnight went by, and then the 

 beetling crag near the dam no longer echoed to 

 the oft-repeated calls of the little dipper family. 

 All was silent in the gorge ; the fledglings had 

 taken wing to some far-distant retreat, and the 

 parent birds, finding that food-supplies for a 



