Tue PERcHING Birps. 53 
and as it grows brighter and brighter and darts its vivid beams into 
the forest’s deep recess, our little performer, as though animated with 
fresh spirit, seems to strain his utmost powers in pouring forth a flood 
of the most enchanting song. This exquisite aerial music is often 
maintained during most of the night, or until the moon sets, two or 
three birds sometimes vying with each other in the strength of their 
voices.” 
It is a matter of much annoyance to find that 
nature has fitted the American Dipper to inhabit the 
mountainous districts of Western North America 
north to Alaska and south to Guatemala, and vouch- 
safed no nook or corner of eastern land a few repre- 
sentatives even of this strange and most interesting 
bird. J. K. Lord, who had abundant opportunities 
of observing this ouzel, or dipper, says,— 
“It eschews all sociable communion, disdaining the slightest ap- 
proach to a gregarious life except when mated, choosing invariably 
wild mountain streams, where, amidst the roar of cascades, whirling 
eddies, and swift torrents, it passes its lonely life. 
“I once found the nest of the American dipper built among the 
roots of a large cedar-tree that had floated down the stream and got 
jammed against the mill-dam of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s old 
grist-mill, at Fort Colville, on a tributary to the upper Columbia 
River. The water, rushing over a jutting ledge of rocks, formed a 
small cascade that fell like a veil of water before the dipper’s nest; 
and it was most curious to see the birds dash through the water-fall 
rather than go in at the sides, and in that way get behind it. For 
hours I have sat and watched the busy pair passing in and out 
through the fall with as much apparent ease as an equestrian per- 
former jumps through a hoop covered with tissue-paper. The nest 
was ingeniously constructed to prevent the spray from wetting the 
interior, the mass being so worked over the entrance as to form an 
admirable veranda.” 
In the Eastern States we have nothing approaching 
this bird in all its peculiarities, yet there are some 
sy 
