704 
BIRD-LIFE., 
localities it lives the whole year round without changing its 
haunts ; hermit-like, not associating with its kind, unless 
it be with the female. The young birds even are driven 
off by their parents as soon as they are able to shift for 
themselves. The Dipper is, so to speak, part and parcel 
of the stream : our aquatic friend does not trouble himself 
in the least about what goes on either to the right or the 
left of it; his life commences, is passed, and ends, either 
close by or in the water; he traverses his beat to and fro 
with the restless activity w T e have before mentioned, up 
and down from boundary to boundary. Prominent boulders, 
and, in winter, blocks of ice, holes in the over-hanging 
banks, &c., are the Water Ouzel’s resting-places; trees 
never : here it sits looking around on all sides; quietly left 
to itself it watches with anxious care alike the surface and 
the depths below, until it spies some morsel worthy of its 
notice, when it darts with the rapidity of lightning into 
the water beneath, diving, wading, or swimming, as best 
suits it. It will either fly, swim, wade, or run, through the 
wildest waterfall from below upwards; it matters little to 
this bird whether it walks on the bottom, or, using its wings 
as fins, swims through the pool. It can remain for nearly 
two minutes under water, and at the same time devours 
everything eatable that it finds there, or what is brought 
down by the current,—insects in all stages, gnats, midges, 
small beetles, and little worms of all sorts. It has been 
accused of destroying fish, or rather their spawn, but no 
observer has as yet proved this to be correct. The Dipper 
prefers brooks bordered with trees, on account of the 
numerous insects which fall from them into the water, 
where it seeks food. 
The Dipper is in every way excellently adapted for the 
capture of its food : it darts upon its prey unawares; its 
