42 THE DIPPER. 



hardly any enemies. Even the average school- 

 boy who spends his Easter holidays close to a 

 stream seldom finds a nest, or if he does locate 

 one sees with regret that it is the other side of 

 the stream under a tangled overhanging bank. 

 Yet the dipper like the nuthatch is often 

 unknown to those who take suburban walks, and 

 is even spoken of as an unfamiliar bird. 



The starling rears as a rule but one brood. 

 It is shot at by every cockney sportsman who 

 can borrow a gun. Its nest is rifled by mere 

 urchins and its young becomes a prey to any 

 cat or catapult in the district. Yet countless 

 flocks are seen, and the bird is reckoned as 

 common as the hedge sparrow. We have all 

 found dead thrushes or starlings on many a 

 winter's walk. I have never seen a dead dipper 

 on the sandy beach of any stream nor have I 

 ever seen the bird attacked. The nuthatch also 

 enjoys an immunity from birdsnesting boys and 

 must rear its young with comparative success 

 year after year, yet how few are seen excepting 

 by those who really set out to look for them. 

 The balance of nature so admirably kept in hand 

 is hard to analyse. 



In the case of the dipper there is a statement 

 in Morris' British Birds to the effect that "one 

 pair or at least a pair built in the same place 

 for thirty one years, rearing three broods each 

 year." Can they have reared three hundred 

 young during that period? If so then their 

 descendants would be sufficient to monopolise a 

 river valley of ten or fifteen miles. No one 



