NATURAL HISTORY OF THE BANKS OF THE TAY. 63 
in the sun, and with sundry jerks of the tail and body he prepares to 
make another plunge. But suddenly becoming conscious of our 
presence, he flies back up stream as speedily as he came, and, turning 
a corner, is lost to view. Such is the Dipper, Water-Ouzel, or Water- 
Crow, as he is more familiarly called. He is erroneously supposed, 
when seen on the salmon beds as above described, to be devouring 
the salmon ova, whereas, as has been proved over and over again, he 
is then searching for the very creatures that do so—the various 
ephemera, water-beetles, and other aquatic insects,—and yet he is 
destroyed. 
A few weeks earlier, about the first week of September, we are 
walking down the river from below the railway bridge at Barnhill, and 
as we come to some half flooded ditches and water-cuts, left by the 
tide, we are startled by the sensation of a bright object suddenly 
passing us and darting up the river with a shrill, piping note, and on 
recovering ourselves we find we have disturbed a gorgeous Kingfisher 
in the middle of his repast, while sitting on a solitary branch of an 
adjoining bush devouring his prey, some minnow perhaps, or small fry. 
Kingfishers, though not now to be compared in numbers to what they 
were formerly, are still occasionally seen in autumn on the lower Tay. 
These may, or may not, be visitors from the continent, which fre¬ 
quently reach us at this season, but we have still a few of these 
birds of our own, resident and breeding on some of the higher reaches; 
and where so, a suitable cavity in the river-bank having been selected, 
six or eight pure white eggs are laid therein, on an accumulation of fish 
bones and pellets ejected by the birds themselves, the only apology 
for a nest, not always of the most savoury kind. As we go on, we find 
the two common species of Water-wagtails, the Pied, and the Grey or 
Yellow Water-wagtail as it is commonly called, plentiful on the banks 
by the water’s edge, especially the former, much the more common 
of the two. Both kinds are almost entirely composed of young birds 
previous to their passage south; and, on watching them, we cannot 
but admire their graceful motions, their lightness and activity in pur¬ 
suit of their insect food, as they move along in short, undulating 
flights, with graceful and buoyant motion of the tail, alighting with 
cheery chirp, then off again in chase of some passing insect, cleverly 
taken on the wing. 
We now enter our boat and cross the Tay, and on reaching the 
right or south bank, we find the ground soft and marshy. We have 
not gone far, when up gets a Snipe, with a loud, unpronounceable 
note—a sort of half screech—then another and another. These are 
chiefly home birds that have lately come in, within the last few weeks, 
from their breeding grounds on the moors; the main flight not having 
yet arrived. Going deeper into the marsh we come to a lot of debris 
