COMMON' DIPPER. 253 



CINCLUS AQUATICUS. 



COMMON DIPPER. 



(PLATE 11.) 



Tringa merula aquatica, Briss. Orn. v. p. 252 (1760). 



Sturnus cinclus, Linn. Syst. A'at. i. p. 290 (1766). 



Turdus cinclus (Linn.), Lath. Ind. Orn. i. p. 343 (1790). 



Turdus rularis, Lath. Ind. Orn. Suppl. p. xl (1801, juv.). 



Cinclus aquaticus, Bechst. Orn. Tasch. p. 206 (1802) ; et auctonun plurimorum 



Meyer, Tenuninck, Naumann, Gould, Bonaparte, Sch/eff el, Salcin, Newton, Dressert 



Sharpe, &c. 



Aqualilis cinclus (Linn.}, Montag. Orn. Diet. Suppl. (1813). 

 Cinclus europseus, Leach, Syst. Cat. Brit. Mm. p. 21 (1816). 

 Hydrobata cinclus (Linn.), Gray, List Gen. B. p. 35 (1841). 



The Dipper, in spite of sundry dark tales and grave charges, is almost 

 universally the angler's favourite a bird of the stream, from its birth 

 amongst the peat and heather high up the mountains, throughout its wander- 

 ing course of fall and pool and rapid. Its distribution in Great Britain is 

 chiefly confined to the mountainous districts of the west and north of 

 England, including Wales, and throughout Scotland, extending to the Outer 

 Hebrides and the Orkneys, but not to the Shetland Isles. In Ireland it is 

 found in similar localities to those in Britain mountain-streams and wild 

 uplands, its distribution being affected by the nature of the country. 

 "Wherever the waters are wild enough, either in the countries of the south 

 or the upland wilds and mountain- districts of the north, the Dipper is 

 pretty sure to be commonly found, naturally becoming much more frequent 

 in the Highlands of Scotland, where it is provincially known to a very 

 great extent as the " Kingfisher." 



The Dipper in a more or less modified form appears to occur throughout 

 the Palsearctic Region and the Himalayas wherever rocky mountain-streams 

 are to be found. Modern evolutionists seem to have come to the con- 

 clusion that the successive stages of the development of the individual are 

 more or less an epitome of the history of the species. If we accept this 

 theory, the attempt to interpret the changes of plumage which our Dipper 

 undergoes would probably lead to the conclusion that the genus Cinclus 

 originated in Central Asia, whence it spread east and west to North America 

 and Europe. The original form probably differed little from typical 

 examples of C. leucogaster, which we may accept as the slightly changed 

 descendants of the Preglacial Dippers of that region. I say slightly 

 changed, because the young in first plumage, not only of our Dipper, but of 

 all the known Dippers of the world, besides retaining the nearly white colour 

 of the whole of the underparts, show traces of dark tips to the feathers, which 



