228 MERUr.TD.K 



INSESSORES. 



DENTIROSTRES. ME1WL1DM. 



PLATE XLV. 



DIPPER 



ClNCLUS AQUATICUS. 



" The bird 

 Is here, the solitary bird, that makes 

 The rock his sole companion. Leafy vale, 

 Green bower, and hedgerow fair, and garden rich 

 With bud and bloom, delight him not ; — he bends 

 No spray, nor roams the wilderness of boughs, 

 Where love and song detain a million wings 

 Through all the summer morn — the summer eve : — 

 He has no fellowship with waving woods, — 

 He joins not in their merry minstrelsy,— 

 But flits from ledge to ledge, and through the day 

 Sings to the Highland waterfall, that speaks 

 To him in strains he loves, and lists 

 For ever."* 



In these lines the favourite locality and the retired habits 

 of the Dipper are well delineated, and in such scenes it is 

 most frequently met with ; there its large mossy nest is con- 

 structed, among the fissures of the rocks, or sheltered by 

 a ledge, and usually overhanging a mountain-stream, in whose 

 waters its food is procured. By Selby, who is well acquainted 

 through personal observation with this species, it is compared 

 in its motions and manners to the wren, which it resembles 



* From the Saturday Magazine, of Dec. 11, 1841, where they appeared under 

 the name of " Carrington." 



