CINCLUS AQUATICUS 
Water-Ouzel or Dipper. 
Sturnus cincliis, Linn. Syst. Nat., tom. i. p. 290. 
Turdus cinclus. Lath. Ind. Orn., vol. i. p. 343. 
Merula aquatica, Briss. Orn,, tom. v. p, 252. 
Cinclus aquaticus, Bechst. Naturg. Deutsch., vol. iii. p. 808. 
melanog aster, Temm. ? 
In studying the habits and mode of life of the Water-Ouzel, the ornithologist is often led into the most 
romantic parts of our island ; and if solitude and beautiful scenery be objects of attraction to him, he may 
while away many hours in pleasurable delight when thus engaged. To say that the Water-Ouzel never 
leaves the rivers springing from the high tors of Dartmoor and Derbyshire, the rocky rivers of Wales, 
Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Yorkshire, and all similar localities throughout England, Scotland, and 
Ireland, would be wrong ; for, although the bird mostly frequents such situations, it is sometimes found in 
the small streams and rivers of other and less rocky parts of England. I have known a solitary individual 
to be killed in the little river Chess, in Buckinghamshire ; it has also been seen in the Colne, and in the 
slow-flowing rivers of Lincolnshire and Norfolk. On the Continent, all countries of a mountainous character, 
from Spain and Italy to Norway and Lapland, are Inhabited by Water-Ouzels. In Holland and the Low 
Countries it is of course not to be expected. Among fishermen it has a bad character, from their belief 
that it feeds upon the ova of the trout and salmon ; hence in some parts of Scotland it is destroyed by every 
device : but the charge, in my opinion, has not been established, nor have I any reason, after taking consi- 
derable pains to investigate the subject, to believe that it is just. During my visit, in November 1859, to 
Penoyre, the seat of Colonel Watkyns, on the river Usk, the Water-Ouzels were very plentiful, and his keeper 
informed me that they were then feeding on the recently deposited roe of the trout and salmon. By the 
Colonel’s desire, five specimens were shot for the purpose of ascertaining by dissection the truth of this 
assertion, but I found no trace whatever of spawn in either of them. Tlieir hard gizzards were entirely 
filled with larvae of Phryganea and the water-beetle (Hydrophilus). One of them had a small Bull-head 
{Coitus gohid) in its throat, which the bird had doubtless taken from under a stone. I suspect that insects 
and their larvae, with small shelled mollusks, constitute their principal food : and it may be that their labours 
in this way are rather beneficial than otherwise ; for as many aquatic insects will attack the ova and fry, 
their destruction must be an advantage. I believe. Indeed, that birds generally, nay always, do good rather 
than harm in the check they give to the undue extension of insect life : and it is not a little interesting to 
observe how their varied forms are adapted to this particular end ; there is no element, and scarcely a situa- 
tion in which insects can live, that is out of the reach of their more powerful enemies, the birds. This law of 
adaptation I have repeatedly referred to in my w'ork on the Trochilidae, where I have, among other examples, 
shown that the stout Brugmansice, with lengthened tubular corollas, are resorted to by Humming-Birds 
with enormously lengthened bills and still longer tongues, especially suited for the exploration of their 
inmost recesses ; while, on the other hand, the little Alpine flowers are visited by species with bills of the 
most diminutive size. The Swallow skims the surface of the water, the more powerful Swift hawks in the 
air, the little Willow'^-Wren {Phyllopneuste trochilus') investigates the foliage of trees, the Wren {Troglodytes 
Europceus) the mossy bank, all for the same end and purpose ; while in the Water-Ouzel we have a bird which 
seeks its sustenance beneath the water, — so that even in this element the bird and the insects are side by 
side. In the diving-habits of the Water-Ouzel we find a seeming reversal of the law of gravitation ; for as 
the living bird is lighter than water, how is it able to descend and sustain itself at the bottom ? Some 
assert that it is by clinging to the pebbles with its strong claws ; others, hy considerable exertion and a 
rapid movement of the wings. Its silky plumage is Impervious to wet ; and hence, when the bird returns 
to the surface, the pearly drops which roll off into the stream are the only evidence of its recent submersion. 
It is, indeed, very interesting to observe this pretty bird walk down a stone, quietly descend into the water, rise 
again perhaps at the distance of several yards down the stream, and wing its way back to the place it had 
just left, to perform the same manoeuvre the next minute, the silence of the interval broken by its cheerful 
warbling song. The flight of the Water-Ouzel is straight, low, and rapid — in fact, much like that of the 
Kingfisher, which it also resembles in its solitary habits. It is, however, seldom found in the same situations, 
the latter being a frequenter of rivers flowing through a fertile country, while the Water-Ouzel resorts to the 
rapid and limpid streams which descend the mountain-sides and run through glens at their base. 
