Fox's Earth to Mountain Tarn 



up from the dive. Silver runs broken and made 

 musical by the gravel and the clear shallow pools 

 are the natural haunt of the dipper. The northern 

 streams are of this character. Though not a 

 Scots bird, perhaps it gets more of what it needs 

 here, and is most at home. A Scots stream with- 

 out a dipper were almost a play without Hamlet. 



It has its nesting area, where it is found year 

 after year. It may shift up and down the burn a 

 little as winter approaches. It has certain narrow 

 limits of migration. Though often the same pair 

 may keep to their summer quarters all year round ; 

 the food is perhaps more certain in the upper 

 reaches. But hard weather makes its own con- 

 ditions. 



A sedge-warbler is either scolding or prattling, 

 or both. The harsh notes sound like scolding, 

 and may well be meant for the stream which has 

 been creeping up the grass stems, floating out the 

 long pendent twigs of the white willow, and 

 coming within measurable distance of its nest. 

 Between the harsh notes is a long string of 

 prattle, much of it pleasant prattle, with some 

 notes very like they had been stolen from our 

 sweetest singers. 



Each summer the bird is there, always at the 

 same eddy. It comes in May ; it sings all through 

 the lingering twilights of June, and intermittently 

 throughout July. The young flit about with the 

 old, six or seven in all ; then they vanish. They 



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