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Ant naturalist who has worked at a particular family is well aware of the difficulty in defining 

 what a species is ; and I know of no family where this difficulty is more apparent than in the 

 Dippers. In the case of the Magpies, where I found specimens answering to the description of 

 P. hudsonica, and closely agreeing with others from America, amongst a series collected in 

 England, and where, again, examples from Spain answered exactly to the description of the so- 

 called P. bottanensis from Bhootan, I could not do otherwise than unite them all under the one 

 species ; but in the present instance, where each form is found within a certain restricted portion 

 of the Paloearctic Eegion, I must look on each of the three White-chested Dippers inhabiting the 

 western Palrearctic Region as a clearly good species, though I admit that they resemble each other 

 very closely in habits, note, and mode of nidification, except that C. albicollis appears to build 

 an open nest ; and in those portions of their range where two species meet, it is not impossible 

 that specimens may be found almost forming a connecting link between the two. After having, 

 however, examined a large series of Dippers from most parts of Europe, I can clearly see that 

 they are easily divisible into the three fairly distinguishable species or local races which I have 

 recognized as distinct, each of which inhabits a certain restricted area; and I can thus fully 

 confirm the views expressed by Mr. Osbert Salvin in his excellent paper on the genus Cinclus 

 (Ibis, 1867, p. 109), in which he recognizes these three species as distinct. 



The present Dipper is the one found in Southern Europe, from the Iberian peninsula to 

 Palestine, and is also met with in Algeria. I have not had an opportunity of examining a speci- 

 men from Portugal, where, doubtless, the Dipper will be found to belong to the present species, 

 and where, according to Professor Barboza du Bocage, it is rare. In Spain, Mr. Howard Saunders 

 writes (I his, 1 S 7 2 , p. 209), it "frequents the higher mountain-streams, but is nowhere numerous. 

 My specimens from the Sierra Nevada appear to be of the ordinary type ; but two I have received 

 from Santander, in Asturias, are Cinclus melanog aster, which is, 1 believe, also found in the 

 Pyrenees." To this I may add that I have examined the specimens above referred to by 

 Mr. Saunders, and cannot agree with him that they belong to the black-breasted race; on 

 the contrary, they are only rather dark specimens, probably young birds, of the present species, 

 having but little trace of rufous coloration on the breast. Lord Lilford also observed it in Spain, 

 and writes (Ibis, 18GG, p. 390), that " it is common on the Eresma and the other mountain-streams 

 of this district." It would seem as if both this race and also typical C. aguaticus occur in the 

 south of Prance, as Jaubert and Barthelemy-Lapommeraye remark that those found at a higher 

 elevation are browner than those met with by the streams of the Var and Basses-Alpes ; and 

 they further state that the latter (C. aguaticus) are migratory, passing through Provence in 

 September and October, and again in April. Bailly states that in Switzerland and Savoy the 

 Dipper is resident, and that it is subject to some slight variation in colour and length of tail- 

 feathers. All I have examined from Switzerland and Italy belong to the present species, and 

 not to C. aquaticus. Bettoni writes that it breeds in Lombardy; Salvadori and Savi record it as 

 abundant in all the mountain-streams of Italy ; and Doderlein states that it is resident, but some- 

 what rare, in Modena, being likewise resident in Sicily, and tolerably abundant in suitable 

 localities. Professor Doderlein remarks that Sicilian specimens have much less rufous on the 

 abdomen than is the case with examples from the main continent; and I suppose that the birds 

 he refers to are similar to the somewhat dark-breasted varieties of the present species from the 

 Pyrenees and Spain. 



