FOOL OR PHILOSOPHER? 11 



against the blue, were soaring, but no wren 

 could I see. At last I reached the end, with 

 its waterfall fountain. Close within this cease- 

 less sprinkle, on a narrow ledge that was never 

 dry, was placed I had almost said grew a 

 bird's nest ; whose, it were needless to ask. One 

 American bird, and one only, chooses perpetual 

 dampness for his environment, the American 

 dipper, or water ouzel. 



Here I paused to muse over the spray-soaked 

 cradle on the rock. In this strange place had- 

 lived a bird so eccentric that he prefers not 

 only to nest under a continuous shower, through 

 which he must constantly pass, but to spend 

 most of his life in, not on the water. Shall we 

 call him a fool or a philosopher ? Is the water 

 a protection, and from what ? Has " damp, 

 moist unpleasantness " no terrors for his fine 

 feathers ? Where now were the nestlings whose 

 lullaby had been the music of the falling waters ? 

 Down that sheer rock, perhaps into the water at 

 its foot, had been the first flight of the ouzel 

 baby. Why had I come too late to see him ? 



But the hours were passing, while I had not 

 seen, and, what was worse, had not heard my 

 first charmer, the canon wren. Leaving these 

 perplexing conundrums unsolved, I turned slowly 

 back down the walk, to resume my search. Per- 

 haps fifty feet from the ouzel nest, as I lingered 



