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regions, i. e. to an absolute height of over 11,000 feet. In their habits the Kan-su birds do not 

 differ from their European congeners. Each pair has its own district, and does not allow any 

 other bird of this species to entrench on it, but lives very peacefully with its neighbours, 

 especially so with Chcemarrhornis leucocephala. The whole day it is busily engaged in diving 

 in search of food, flying from stone to stone, or singing its simple but not unpleasant song, which 

 (like our European bird) it does not omit to utter in winter ; and in December and February we 

 obtained specimens in the Burchan-Budda Mountains of Northern Thibet. In Kan-su they are 

 most probably resident, keeping to the ice-free mountain-brooks in the winter. In spring, about 

 the 9th of May, all the females were sitting, and the males were only seen singly. The young, 

 which are easily distinguished from the old birds by their white underparts, leave the nest at 

 the end of July or beginning of August ; at least from that time onwards we often met with 

 them. Its range does not extend further north than Kan-su." The Abbe Armand David states 

 (Ois. de la Chine, p. 147) that he obtained specimens in Sechueu in spring, summer, and autumn, 

 which, from his description, were evidently true C. cashmiriensis. 



How far to the north the present form extends in Asia I cannot with the present available 

 material decide. As above stated, Prjevalsky did not meet with it further north than Kan-su ; 

 and I cannot agree with Dr. Sharpe (Cat. B. Brit. Mus. vi. p. 313) that the form found in the 

 Baikal district in Eastern Siberia should be referred to the present species, as it differs much 

 more from true Cinclus cashmiriensis than that species does from Cinclus melanogaster. 



As I remarked in an article on the White-breasted Dippers (Ibis, 1892, pp. 380-387), the 

 PalEearctic White-breasted Dippers are all so closely allied that they cannot be otherwise treated 

 than as modified forms or subspecies which have diverged from one parent stock, the divergences 

 having in all probability been caused by isolation, which is the more probable because the 

 Dipper is essentially a non-migratory species, which does not, as a rule, wander far from its usual 

 range, and then only when driven out by stress of weather. I need not here again discuss the 

 question in extenso, and will only give a list of the various forms which I have been able to 

 recognize, and which I consider to be forms differentiated by isolation from the one parent stock, 

 which appears to me to be in all probability Cinclus melanogaster, or it may possibly be Cinclus 

 cashmiriensis. 



Cinclus melanogaster, Brehm, which I take to be the parent stock, has the upper parts very 

 dark brown, the back squamated up to the hind neck, the underparts below the white breast 

 deep warm blackish brown, and the flanks dark slate-grey. Culmen - 9 to - 93 inch, wing 3-45 

 to 3 - 7, tail 2 - 3 to 2 - 35, tarsus 1-25 to 1*3. — Hah. Scandinavia and Northern Europe eastward to 

 the Ural, occasionally straggling to Great Britain, Holland, Belgium, and North Germany. 



Subsp. a. Cinclus aquaticus, Bechst., differs from C. melanogaster in having the upper parts rather paler, the 

 flanks much less grey, and the underparts, immediately bordering the white, bright rufous. Culmen 

 0-82 to 0'9 inch, wing 325 to 3*6, tail 2'1 to 2-45, tarsus 1-05 to 1'25. — Hub, Great Britain, France, 

 Belgium, Holland, and Germany. 



h. Cinclus pyrenaicus, Dresser, resembles C. melanogaster, but is paler, especially on the head and neck, the 

 underparts paler and browner, and the wing shorter. Culmen 085 to 095 inch, wing 3"1 to 3"4, tail 

 2*1 to 2'3, tarsus 1'05 to 1"15. — Hah. Pyrenees. 



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