258 BRITISH BIRDS. 



When I was in the Pyrenees last winter we visited Pierrefitte, where 

 the valley divides into two gorges. We took the one leading to Bareges. 

 The sun was bui'ning hot ; but there was hoar-frost and ice in the shade. 

 The gorge is ver^y fine : sometimes there is a little grassy land near the 

 rocky river ; but in other places the valley becomes narrower, and for a 

 long distance is only a ledge which has been blasted out of the steep 

 sloping rock, and you can look down a couple of hundred feet and see the 

 river boiling and roaring in the chasm below. The gorge is well timbered, 

 shrubs and trees even growing in the crevices o£ almost pei'pendicular 

 rocks. In winter it is not easy to see what the trees are ; but oaks and 

 chestnut seemed to abound, and the abundance of misseltoe was very 

 striking. We noticed a quantity of juniper and bo.x; -trees in the under- 

 wood, whilst high up near the mountain-tops the sombre pine-forests 

 looked almost black against the snow. This gorge was a paradise for 

 Dippers ; almost every hundred yards we came upon a pair. We watched 

 them chasing each other up and down the river and screaming almost like 

 Swifts. More often they were conspicuously perched upon a rock in the 

 stream, perpetually dipping down their heads and jerking up their tails. 

 Several times we watched them wading iu the shallow water or swimming 

 and diving in the deeper pools. Now and then they perched on the 

 mossy banks and seemed to fly up and catch insects on the o\'erhanging 

 moss. 



Doubtless from the peculiar manner in which the Dipper seeks its food, 

 and the situations iu which it is chiefly found, the bird has gained much 

 of its reputation as an enemy to the ova of the salmon and the trout. The 

 Dipper is seen to enter the stream, to disappear beneath the surface, and 

 explore what are well kno^i u to be the breeding-grounds of these flsh ; 

 and hence it is very easy to see why the bird has fallen into such bad 

 repute with the ignorant pisciculturist and the bigoted angler. Not 

 taking the trouble to seriously investigate the matter, they at once set 

 down the poor Dipper as the enemy of the ova and fry, and persecute 

 him accordingly — a fate that befalls too many harmless animals. But 

 instead of being the fish-preserver's enemy, he is in fact one of his 

 firmest friends. His food consists of various creatures which, in their 

 larval stages of development, are themselves the greatest enemies to the 

 ova. His journeyings to the bed of the stream are for the purpose of 

 obtaining the caddis-worms, water-beetles, and various species of small 

 mollusca and insects found amongst the moss-grown pebbles and sandy 

 bed of the waters, and occasionally a small fish. He also obtains some 

 portion of his food on the marshy banks of the stream, such as worms 

 and grubs and, more rarely, the seeds of various grasses. 



From what evidence it is possible to obtain on the subject, it is most 

 probable that the Dippei' is a life-paired bird, and either frequents each 



