DIPPER. 243 



exertion was used, both by wings and legs.' When search- 

 ing for food, it does not proceed to great distances under 

 water ; but, alighting on some spot, sinks, and soon reap- 

 pears in the immediate neighbourhood, when it either dives 

 again, or rises on the wing to drop somewhere else on the 

 stream, or settle on a stone. The assertion of its walking 

 below the water, which some persons have ventured, is not 

 made good by observation nor countenanced by reason. The 

 Dipper is by no means a walking bird : even on land I have 

 never seen it move more than a few steps, which it accom- 

 plished by a kind of leaping motion. Its short legs and 

 long curved claws are very ill adapted for running, but ad- 

 mirably calculated for securing a steady footing on slippery 

 stones, whether above or beneath the surface of the water." 

 The Dipper may be said to be local rather than rare, but 

 is only by chance found in the counties which do not possess 

 the streams of the kind it most loves to haunt. Thus its dis- 

 tribution in the British Islands is chiefly affected by the nature 

 of the country. Mr. More has ascertained that it breeds occa- 

 sionally in Cornwall and Dorset, but regularly in Devon, Somer- 

 set, probably throughout Wales, Monmouthshire, Hereford- 

 shire, Salop, Staffordshire, Cheshire, Derbyshire, Yorkshire 

 and Lancashire, and thence generally northward in all the 

 Scotch counties, reaching the Hebrides but not the Orkneys or 

 Shetlands. It also, according to Thompson, inhabits suit- 

 able localities in Ireland. In many of the districts named, 

 it is (or, if not persecuted, would be) far from uncommon ; 

 and, though certainly resident as a species, individuals in 

 autumn and winter not unfrequently occur in the eastern and 

 southern counties of England, in such cases usually making 

 their temporary sojourn on some rapid brook or mill-race, 

 where their brightly-contrasted plumage and peculiar habits 

 speedily attract attention. As a songster, the Dipper is 

 remarkable for its musical performance being by no means 

 limited to the breeding-season, but, beginning in autumn*, it 

 is frequently heard among the frosts and snows of midwinter. 



* The Editor has been kindly informed by Professor Flower that in the Thur- 

 injiian Forest he observed the Dipper in full song on the 3rd of October, 1871. 



