BIRDS OF DUMFRIESSHIRE 35 
early spring it goes further afield, and many pairs are to be 
found nesting in the upland bums and water-courses 
The nest, which is large and domed, is made chiefly of 
moss, hned with dry leaves, the entrance being low down 
on one side. In structure it resembles the nest of the Wren 
and IS usually built in a hole ; under a bridge, in a bank' 
among the roots of trees, or on a ledge of rock often behind 
a cascade of water through which the bird has to fly In 
1870 a pair of Dippers made their nest in a hole in a wall 
at Dumfries Town Mill, the eggs "were unfortunately 
harried and the birds again attempted to nest in the same 
P'^f' °f kindness to themselves they were pre- 
vented."* On March 28th, 1903, I found a nest ready for 
eggs m a most unusual situation. It was quite ten feet 
above the water, and was built on to the side of an oak 
tree covered with polypody fern (Polypodium vulgare). 
J^avounte nesting-sites are resorted to annually with 
great regularity, and the following statements give the history 
of an mteresting instance of constancy in this respect. In 
the Annandale Herald of June 27th, 1865, we read, " In the 
Capel Burn on the farm of the same name in the parish of 
Tundergarth, at an elevation of nearly 900 feet above the 
elevation of the Solway, a huge gray rock rises many yards 
right perpendicular, and over it the stream dashes, roaring 
and foaming into the pool below. Away in the rock, under- 
neath the projected column of water, are two shelves or 
daises, whereon during the summer there is a slight 
^""^ '^^^J^^- These ' dasses ' 
afford fine shelter for the httle white breasted Water-Craw 
and there for the last eighty years she has built her nest 
and laid her eggs, and reared her young unmolested." 
e^t.r.^ir. *° observations of shepherds 
E \ P'"?^ ^tenever she 
has made her nest on the lower shelf, it has always turned 
the higher shelf, the season has invariably proved cold. 
• Minute, of D. and G. Nat. Hist. Soc., May 3rd, 1870. 
D 2 
