THE DIPPER, OR WATER OUZEL. 
703 
spying out the crevices, stopping a few seconds at each, 
for it is almost sure to find something in every cranny; 
it then rises suddenly in the air, and shoots forward with 
a whirring beat of the wings straight ahead and close 
over the surface of the water in search of some further 
discovery. Though not belonging to the swimmers, it 
still unhesitatingly plunges into the wildest eddy or fall, 
amid the foam, with the greatest possible indifference, as 
though it despised the threatening aspect of the raging 
flood by which it is surrounded; it is no diver, and yet 
can dive with the best of them; it is not a runner, still 
it can vie with the Quail in speed of foot; it is not a flyer 
in the usual sense of the word, but for all that it can fly 
with such rapidity as to require a practised shot to drop 
it when on the wing. Brisk, active, quick, observant and 
cautious, it is ever on the move; its keen eye is always 
on the look out far and near, all enemies are noticed, and 
from every danger it finds a means to escape; ruthless man 
alone, is able to get the best of it, and that by means of 
his gun, whose deadly charge strikes from afar; otherwise 
there is scarcely a creature capable of capturing this little 
being, the friend of the flood, which is ever ready to 
afford it protection. 
Our Dipper inhabits the mountains of the Old World, 
and is found everywhere where crystal streams and 
foaming torrents abound: the Swiss alps, the mountains 
of Scandinavia, the Pyrenees, the Carpathians, and our 
German ranges, are its true home. I have found it in the 
Sierra Nevada as high as seven thousand feet above the 
level of the sea, and my friend Georgy tells me it has been 
found hunting for prey even amongst the rifts and crevasses 
of the Glaciers. This bird is fond of trout-streams, for 
they are generally pure, clear mountain burns. In these 
