2 
PALLAS’ DIPPER. 
tation in affirming that both Mr. Swainson’s, and that described 
by Temminck, and supposed to have been found by Pallas in the 
Crimea, are identical with ours; notwithstanding the localities 
are so widely distant from each other, as well as from that whence 
ours comes, which however it will be perceived, is intermediate 
between them. 
It has been frequently remarked by us, and the fact is now well 
established, that many birds of Mexico, entirely unknown in the 
Atlantic territories of the United States, are met with in the 
interior, and especially along the range of the Rocky Mountains, 
at considerably higher latitudes. But it was not to be expected 
that a Mexican species should extend so far north as the Athabasca 
Lake, where our specimen was procured. The circumstance is 
however the less surprising in birds of this genus, as their peculiar 
habits will only allow them to live in certain districts. The case 
is similar with the Dipper of the old continent, which, though 
widely dispersed, is only seen in mountainous and rocky countries. 
Though we do not see any improbability in the American species 
inhabiting the eastern Asiatic shore, we prefer believing that the 
specimens on which Temminck established the species, and whose 
supposed native place was the Crimea, were in fact American. 
The two species are so much alike in size, shape, and even colour, 
as to defy the attempts of the most determined system-maker to 
separate them into different groups. 
The single species of which the genus Cinclus had hitherto 
consisted, was placed in Sturnus by Linne, and by Scopoli, with 
much more propriety, in Motacilla. Latham referred it to Turdus. 
Brisson, mistaking for affinity the strong and curious analogy 
which it bears to the waders, considered it as belonging to the 
genus Tringa, (Sandpipers). Bechstein, Illiger, Cuvier, and all the 
best modern authorities, have regarded it as the type of a natural 
genus, for which they have unanimously retained the name of 
