534 
BIRDS OF NEW MEXICO 
eyelid The quick working or flashing of this white membrane, so 
conspicuous in the dark, is unconscious reflex action. 
Doctor Cordier makes another interesting observation. When in 
the water, he says, the Ouzel’s under cape of oily down may often be 
seen “protruding through or between the heavier coat of feathers, 
producing a shimmering halo about some parts of the bird’s body” 
(1927, p. 178), 
Unique and interesting in all its ways of life, and with a delightful 
gift of song, this cheery little comrade is eagerly looked for and long 
remembered, associated as it is with the most vital waters of the noble 
mountains of northern New Mexico. 
At the mouth of the Hondo, in June, 1916, Mr. Ligon found several 
Ouzel nests in characteristic places. Here, as he says, the Hondo 
pitches and foams between and over great bowlders between per¬ 
pendicular walls. A hundred yards from where the stream enters the 
Rio Grande, the toll road is carried over by a short wooden bridge on 
which vehicles are constantly passing. On the sleepers of this bridge 
were two Dipper nests. A short distance above, on a large bowlder 
that rose slightly above the water of the wild, dashing stream, was a 
nest on the bare rock, sun-exposed and constantly showered over by 
the spray. Only a .short distance above was a third, on a ledge of the 
canyon wall, above the water. 
Another nest was found by Mr. Ligon on the Santa Barbara River 
on June 27, 1919, when, owing to summer rains and melting snow on the 
higher peaks of the Sangre de Cristos which it drains, it was forty 
feet wide, raging, and dangerous to ford even with strong horses, having 
a tremendous current on account of its rapid fall. Engaged in the work 
of destroying predatory animals—at the moment, grizzly bears— 
Mr. Ligon and Hunter McMullin were traveling with a pack outfit 
and seven dogs, some of which were young and unaccustomed to 
swimming swollen streams. At an unusually bad crossing, they had 
to cut down a spruce tree to span the stream to enable the dogs to 
cross in safety. While cutting the tree, Mr. Ligon saw a Dipper 
flying back and forth and discovered a nest on a bowlder that lay in 
mid-stream just above the main part of the dashing torrent, the spray 
from which constantly showered the nest As he wrote: “The parent 
bird was very much concerned over our presence, alighting on the 
bowlders not over twenty feet away. After we had crossed the stream, 
by the use of a long pole thrown across the intervening space, I crawled 
to the bowlder and examined the nest, which contained five young, 
smoothly feathered and about the size of the adult bird. After I 
had disturbed them, they all piled out into the raging, icy torrent, for 
a little way flopping their wings and riding over the dips and white 
caps, finally disappearing below, where the current was thrown into a 
