Dippers and Salmonidae 381 



a long way to the good, and reached the lake. Here he 

 evidently felt himself quite beyond danger, for he was 

 running about on the shingle, with all his old sang-froid 

 restored, when I again came up with him. As I advanced, 

 he took to the water ; and keeping an offing of twenty or 

 thirty yards, was, I believe, actually trying to curtsey as he 

 swam when I left him ! 



On the Lliw one day I saw a Dipper catch, and kill, by 

 dashing it against the ground, a Loach of rather over three 

 inches in length. It was able to fly with it a short distance, 

 and lost no time in starting to pick it to pieces ; for, when I 

 recovered the fish for identification, the eyes, and a good 

 deal of the head, had already been devoured. From long 

 observation, however, I feel very confident in asserting that 

 it is very rarely that the Water Ouzel takes a fish, and, 

 then, it is only such species as the Loach, or Miller's 

 Thumb, that habitually lurk beneath stones in the bed of 

 the stream, that are likely to fall a prey to it. I once found 

 a small Lamprey in one of many that I have either shot, or 

 seen shot, upon trout streams, in order to ascertain what 

 they had been feeding upon ; but never knew either the 

 young, or spawn, of Salmonidae to be so found. That 

 Salmonidae, in the alevin stage, may sometimes be taken by 

 a Dipper is very probable, for they are then lurking about 

 in very much such places as are hunted for the larvae of 

 insects ; but, as just stated, I have never seen any evidence 

 of it ; and even if it were found that an occasional alevin is 

 taken, it must not be forgotten that the insects destroyed 

 would, in any case, collectively, have done much more harm 

 on the redds. That a Dipper would eat any spawn which 

 chanced to fall in its way, is also likely enough ; but its 

 manner of feeding is not such as brings ova, in a properly 

 constructed redd, within its reach. It does not grub about 

 the gravel at a depth at which ova lie, but merely skims the 

 surface for such insects, or their larvae, as may be hiding 

 beneath the upper stones, and which are seized, when, 

 alarmed by its approach, they are making off. That the 

 Dipper is harmless, if not actually beneficial, upon Trout or 

 Salmon redds, is, however, now so well recognised by those 



