70 ornithologist's text-book. 



salmon, while still in their cradle pools, numerous 

 as motes in the sun, and each not an inch long, 

 form a supply for it, and its young while these are 

 in the nest. Nor is it at all chary of the nests of 

 the fishes, — of those nests under the sand and 

 gravel, each containing thousands, to form and fill 

 which the fish ascend as far as they can by the 

 help of the autumnal floods, and the nests (or ra- 

 ther • plantations') of young, sprout up in the spring, 

 like young onions in a garden. While the water 

 is unfrozen, the sun acts upon these, and they pass 

 through their stages; so that while the Thrushes, 

 with which the Dipper has sometimes been asso- 

 ciated in systems, are frozen out on land, the 

 Dipper feasts in plenty under the water. 



" The Dipper catches part of its food standing 

 on land, and some even on the wing, as well as 

 floating on the surface of the water; but it also 

 catches a considerable part under the water, and 

 the water is its retreat from terrestrial danger. 

 It cannot skim the water so well as if its feet 

 were webbed. Wings, though they help a web- 

 footed bird in running along the water, as may 

 be seen in the case of a Duck or Goose, are of less 

 use for progressive motion along the surface, if 

 there are not webbed feet to act as fulcra. But the 

 Dipper walks into the water, or lights on it from the 

 wing, and in either way gets under the surface, and 

 rises, descends, moves laterally, or appears to walk 

 (actually does walk) along the bottom ; in short, 

 has almost the same command of itself in that sin- 

 gular element for feathers, as other birds have in 

 the air. 



" A question has been raised (I do not say 

 among ' those out o' their wits,' because there are 

 ' impossible cases,' in that problem), how the Dip- 

 per can contrive to keep ' beneath a fluid so infi- 

 nitely more dense than itself.' That is a strange 



