34 The Dipper, or Water-ousel. 



deep, shadowy pools, or lying low between rocky walls, in the 

 moist crevices and on the edges of which the wild rose flings 

 out its pale green branches, gemmed with flowers, or the hardy 

 polypody nods, like a feathery plume. On these streams, with 

 their foamy waters and graceful vegetation, you may look for 

 the cheerful little water-ousel. He is perfectly in character 

 with the scenes. 



And now, supposing that you are happily located for a few 

 weeks in summer, either in Scotland or Wales, let me repeat my 

 constant advice as regards the study and truest enjoyment of 

 country life and things. Go out for several hours ; do not be 

 in a hurry ; take your book, or your sketching, or whatever your 

 favourite occupation may be, if it be only a quiet one, and seat 

 yourself by some rock)^ stream amongst the mountains ; choose 

 the pleasantest place you know, where the sun can reach you, if 

 you need his warmth, and if you do not, where you can yet 

 witness the beautiful effects of light and shade. There seat 

 yourself quite at your ease, silent and still as though you were a 

 piece of rock itself, half screened by that lovely wild rose bush, 

 or tangle of bramble, and before long you will most likely see 

 this merry, lively little dipper come with his quick, jerking 

 flight, now alighting on this stone, now on that, peeping here, 

 and peeping there, as quick as light, and snapping up, now a 

 water-beetle, now a tiny fish, and now diving down into the 

 stream for a worm that he espies below, or walking into the 

 shallows, and there flapping his wings, more for the sheer 

 delight of doing so than for anything else. Now he is off and 

 away, and, in a moment or two, he is on yonder gray mass of 

 stone, which rises up in that dark chasm of waters like a rock in 



