72 BIRDS OF THE WEST OF SCOTLAND. 



at that time abundant in the Spey and its tributaries, and also 

 that during the time of spawning it was considered very destruc- 

 tive to the spawn of both trout and salmon. " Formerly," adds 

 Mr Wilson, " any person who succeeded in killing one of these 

 birds was allowed, as a reward, the privilege of fishing in the 

 close season; but for a long time back this has been lost sight of/'* 

 Mr Brown informs me that to this day a reward of sixpence 

 a-head is given for Dippers in some parts of Sutherland- 

 shire. I believe it will be admitted by those who have studied 

 the habits of this bird that it feeds almost exclusively on fresh 

 water shells and the larvae of aquatic insects, and that it is there- 

 fore a groundless charge to suppose that it destroys the spawn of 

 fish. Instead of doing harm in this way, it is in fact the angler's 

 best friend by devouring immense quantities of the larvse of dragon- 

 flies and water-beetles creatures which are known to live to a 

 great extent upon the spawn, and even the newly-hatched fry of 

 both trout and salmon. 



The song of the Dipper is extremely pleasing, being heard at all 

 seasons of the year, and, I may add, at all hours of the day. I 

 have stood within a few yards of one at the close of a blustering 

 winter's day, and enjoyed its charming music unobserved. The 

 performer was sitting on a stake jutting from a mill pond in the 

 midst of a cold and cheerless Forfarshire moor, yet he joyously 

 warbled his evening hymn with a fulness which made me forget 

 the surrounding sterility, and imagine that I stood by the fertile 

 banks of the Tyne in East Lothian, where, in boyish admiration, 

 I first listened to the " water pyet's " melodies. On another 

 occasion, also about dusk, when rambling along the margin of the 

 Clyde near Lanark, after the breaking up of a long enduring frost, 

 I was delighted to hear the familiar voice of a Dipper close at 

 hand, and, on looking round, to find the " sweet singer " perched 

 on a floating block of ice which was somewhat swiftly sailing with 

 the current of the swollen river. Waiting until it had passed me, 

 I had time to observe that his perch was a bit of turf that had 

 become frozen in the block, and that the little sailor seemed hardly 

 conscious of being wafted onwards. The song continued until the 

 tiny iceberg reached a much swifter current, running between two 

 islets in the centre of the river, when the bird, apparently realising 



* See New Statistical Account of Banff shire, page 118. 



