NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
4G5 
oF the wood-\Yren, common wren, or the willow warblers, rather 
tlian the thrushes. It is generally made of moss and grass 
tightly Avoven together. One in my collection is composed 
■ mainly of grass and the stalks of sedges, and is thickly lined 
with dead leaves. The eggs are uniformly white when blown, 
but before this have a beautiful tinge of salmon colour. The 
young dippers are curious little birds, and take to the water at 
a very early age. The eggs are of a more transparent white 
than those of such birds as the wood-pigeon or tlie owl, and 
number from four to six." 
Watp^k-Ousel, p. 112. — This pretty little bird is accused of 
eating salmon and trout eggs from the natural spawning- beds. 
I am strongly of opinion he never does anything of the kind. 
Here is a good witness in the bird's favour. Mr. J. H. Horsfail, 
of Leeds, writes me : — " I have made, at your request, a most 
careful examination of the bird, from the stomach downwards. I 
was pleased to find the gizzard (which is by no means very mus- 
cular) quite full. I placed it in a vessel of clean water, divided it 
in half, and emptied out the contents, the whole of which I passed 
in detail under the object-glass of a microscope. I could not find 
the least trace of fish ova; I looked especially for the horny egg- 
cases, for these would be the most likely portions of the egg to 
escape digestion, but I could not find any appearance whatever 
of them. The contents of the gizzard consisted entirely of the 
hard external cases of water insects, portions of the legs \^ ith the 
hooks attached, and broken fragments of otlier portions of their 
bodies, interndxed wi-th some vegetable structure and several 
small fragments of gravel and transparent quartz. 
" Twenty fell to my gun, just as they emeriied from the spawn- 
ing-beds, every one of which I at once opened from bill to gizzard. 
On examination, both before and after washing, with the naked 
eye and under the microscope, I could not in one single instance 
discover a trace of ova, neither of case of ova, nor of the olea- 
ginous matter which foims the contents of the case; instead of 
this, I found the stomach full of the larvte of flies, whole and in 
fragments, and always more or less of fine sand. About this date 
I heard of the destruction of ova in the boxes at StormontfieJd 
by the larva? of the stonefly, and it immediately occurred to me 
that I was destroying a most efficient assistant, and that the 
water-ousel was one amongst the many exquisite links con- 
stantly presenting themselves to the student of the natural his- 
tory of salmon and trout. During the formation of the spawn- 
ing-bed, the salmon turns over gravel, in the interstices (f 
which lie the larva? of aquatic flies, to which the water-ousel is 
