/o 
THE EUROPEAN DIPPER. 
brush. A stick or branch which had fallen across 
the stream may be resorted to ; but we have 
never seen it inclined to perch on the overhang- 
ing bushes, and would refer this variation to 
some peculiarity in the locality. In winter, 
when the higher streams become frozen, and the 
cold intense, the “ Water Crow ” removes to the 
banks of the larger and lower flowing rivers, or 
to the margins of some unfrozen lake. Here 
they find a more abundant supply of food, and 
their aquatic habits and manner of fishing are 
more easily observed. On every reach one or 
two may be now seen perched on some project- 
ing stone or stick, or watching by the very edge 
of the ice, whence they drop at once on their 
prey, consisting at this time in great part of 
small fishes. They are most active in their 
motions during this occupation, and dive and 
return to their station with much rapidity. In 
milder weather, or when the rivers are less 
choked with ice, they swim and dive in the 
centre of the pools, and so expertly, that we have 
mistaken and followed them for the little grebe. 
At this time, and I may say generally, aquatic 
insects, the larvae of phryganid®, and in some 
situations different species of fresh water shells, 
form their chief food, which in summer again is 
varied by a greater choice of insects and aquatic 
larvae. It has been during the continuance of a 
very severe frost only that we have seen this bird 
seize small fishes in the manner above mentioned, 
of diving from the edge of the ice ; at the dis- 
