212 BIRD LIFE THROUGHOUT THE YEAR 



Then there is the matter of the Dipper or Water 

 Ouzel, whose food, it is more than hinted, includes 

 trout-spawn amongst other items, so that upon some 

 carefully-preserved waters it is shot off. When one 

 has the rare opportunity of looking down upon a 

 dipper at work at the bottom of a pool, it is seen to 

 maintain itself there by vigorous movement of its 

 wings as it searches the bed of pebbles or gravel. 

 It may safely be surmised that the pursuit of water 

 insects and their larvae is its primary object ; possibly 

 some small amount of spawn may be disturbed or even 

 eaten. 



Even the diet of the birds of prey may be more 

 varied than one ordinarily supposes. The Buzzard, 

 though a noble-looking hawk, does not disdain earth- 

 worms and beetles. A farmer remarked to us that a 

 pair of buzzards, which nested on the rocks above his 

 house, had entirely cleared his fields of moles. A 

 friend, holiday-making in Wales, saw a buzzard 

 rise from the bushy cliff-slope with a writhing snake 

 hanging from its talons, and a gentleman who inad- 

 vertently wounded a female Brown Owl and turned her 

 into an old pheasantry to recover tells us that her 

 disconsolate mate nightly brought, not only mice and 

 birds, but also numerous frogs and toads. But a 

 general discussion of so large a subject as the food of 

 birds would lead us too far from the berried hedges 

 of October. 



