Tlic Home of the Dipper. 35 



a stormy sea, with the rush and roar of the water full above him. 

 Yet there he is quite at home, flirting his little tail like a jenny 

 wren, and hopping- about on his rocky point, as if he could not 

 for the life of him be still for a moment. Now listen ! That is 

 his song, and a merry little song it is, just such a one as you 

 would fancy coming out of his jocund little heart ; and, see now, 

 he begins his antics. He must be a queer little soul ! If we 

 could be little dippers like him, and understand what his song 

 and all his grimaces are about, we should not so often find the 

 time tedious for want of something to do. 



We may be sure he is happy, and that he has, in the round of 

 his small experience, all that his heart desires. He has this 

 lonely mountain stream to hunt in, these leaping, chattering, 

 laughing waters to bear him company, all these fantastically 

 heaped-up stones, brought hither by furious winter torrents of 

 long ago — that dashing, ever roaring, ever foaming waterfall, 

 in the spray of which the summer sunshine weaves rainbows. 

 All these wild roses and honeysuckles, all this maiden hair, and 

 this broad polypody, which grows golden in autumn, make up 

 his little kingdom, in the very heart of which, under a ledge of 

 rock, and within sound, almost within the spray of the waterfall, 

 is built the curious little nest, very like that of a wren, in which sits 

 the hen-bird, the little wife of the dipper, brooding with most 

 unwearied love on four or five white eggs, lightly touched with 

 red. 



This nest is extremely soft and elastic, sometimes of large 

 size, the reason for which one cannot understand. It is generally 

 near to the water, and, being kept damp by its situation, is 

 always so fresh, looking so like the mass of its immediate sur- 



