The Dippers’ 
Home. 
(86) THE BIRD WORLD. 
The Dippers" Horrve. 
By G. H. LEWIN. 
On a mountain stream in the hills of 
Wales, Whitebreast, the Dipper, and 
Iris wife, Bobtail, made their home. 
They lived, for the most part, on the 
wildest stretch of stream, where a drop 
in the rock of the mountain side of some 
sixty feet formed a glorious waterfall, 
which sent forth gleams of silver and 
gold in the summer sun; below, for a 
mile or more, was a beautiful clear stream 
running swiftly over the scattered rocks, 
-and quietly and serenely through one or 
two wide pools formed by the fallen 
-boulders holding the water back. 
Under the Rocks. 
In a nest under the rocks, almost at 
the foot of the fall and spray-sprinkled 
with the force of every flood, White- 
Breast was born, with the mimic thunder 
of the fall and the music of the rushing 
waters ever in his ears. No wonder 
that he loved the spot, and delighted in 
the tinkling pebbles of the stream and 
the spray and life of the ever-running 
waters. 
For two years he had lived there. 
His parents had been lost to him during 
the first winter when the terrible frosts 
shut up even the rushing mountain tor¬ 
rents, causing the Dippers, hardy as 
they are, much distress, and driving 
them down the hillside until they reached 
.the tidal waters where the salt sea, with 
its resistless movements, kept the beach 
and mud flats soft, so that the Dippers, 
in company with many other frozen out 
birds, could find some food. 
Home Again. 
When Whitebreast came back he was 
alone, and took his station upon the 
look-out stone which his father had used 
before him, feeling quite desolate, for 
the water was brown with the wash of 
the flood, and the stream was full, 
covering many rocks, and here and there 
spreading over the banks upon the land 
adjoining. This caused him some 
trouble in finding his food, but by run¬ 
ning along the sides of the lowering 
waters, where a gravelly stretch ap¬ 
peared, he found sufficient small life to 
keep him going until the stream had 
fallen and the waters ran clear again. 
Happy Hays of Spring. 
Soon the bright spring days began 
to dawn, and the sun shines longer and 
stronger day by day upon the water, 
which seems to laugh and sing in the 
light of the coming renaissance of wild 
life which every spring brings forth. 
Whitebreast, with the milder weather, 
has now an easy life. He flits and hops 
from stone to stone and from pool to 
pool, playing in the clear, shallow 
basins, sinking under the water and 
running along the bottom on the pebbles 
in his clever way, bringing up for food 
small, soft-shelled creatures, and any 
tiny life that he can get. 
He Meets a Mate. 
He keeps alone for a time, but soon 
gets tired of his solitary life, and so he 
travels up and down the stream, some¬ 
times meeting other birds, but making 
no friends, until one day he meets 
another Dipper almost like himself, but 
not, perhaps, with quite so bright a 
coat; but he is glad of company, and 
so “ shows off ” in his inimitable manner. 
And wonderfully queer he looks, re 
minding one of a fussy little Alderman 
with a wide expanse of white shirt front. 
His stout, round little body and up¬ 
turned beak and tail—the tail ridicu¬ 
lously short—cause him to appear as a 
quaint and knowing, but ancient, little 
creature. He bobs his head and spreads 
his short tail, making himself so attrac- 
