4 
PALLAS’ DIPPER. 
streams, whose bed is covered with pebbles, and strewed with 
stones and fragments of rock. They are remarkably shy and 
cautious, never alight on branches, but keep always on the border 
of the stream, perched, in an attitude peculiar to themselves, on 
some stone or rock projecting over the water, attentively watching 
for their prey. Thence they repeatedly plunge to the bottom, 
and remain long submerged, searching for fry, Crustacea, and the 
other small aquatic animals that constitute their food. They are 
also very destructive to musquitoes, and other dipterous insects 
and their aquatic larvae, devouring them beneath the surface. 
They never avoid water, nor hesitate in the least to enter it, and 
even precipitate themselves without danger amidst the falls and 
eddies of cataracts. Their habits are in fact so decidedly aquatic, 
that water may be called their proper element, although system¬ 
atically they belong to the true land birds. The web-footed tribes 
swim and dive; the long-legged birds wade as long as the water 
does not touch their feathers; the Dippers alone possess the 
faculty of walking at ease on the bottom, as others do on dry 
land, crossing in this manner from one shore to the other under 
water. They may be often seen gradually advancing from the 
shallows, penetrating deeper and deeper, and, careless of losing 
their depth, walking with great facility on the gravel against the 
current. As soon as the water is deep enough for them to plunge, 
their wings are opened, dropped, and agitated somewhat con¬ 
vulsively, and with the head stretched horizontally, as if flying, 
they descend to the bottom, where they course up and down in 
search of food. As long as the eye can follow them, they appear, 
while in the water, covered with bubbles of air, rapidly emanating 
from their bodies, as is observed in some coleopterous insects. 
The Dippers run very fast: their flight is direct, and swift as 
an arrow, just skimming the surface, precisely in the manner 
of the Kingfisher. They often plunge under at once without 
