quest for sustenance, is as much aquatic as a Grebe or a Moorhen. He is quite as much at home in the water as in the air or on dry land. Sometimes he walks deliberately from the bank or from a sloping moss-covered stone into the water; at others he takes a short flight over the stream and drops suddenly down into the pool; whilst yet again we have often seen him arrest a long-continued flight—which, by the way, follows every bend of the brook—and, fluttering for a moment, poise and disappear beneath the surface at once. The Dipper only maintains his subaqueous position by much evident exertion of his wings and legs and feet. Generally the wings are kept in motion whilst the bird searches the bed of the stream, but sometimes these may be seen at rest, and the body is kept beneath the water by the feet clutching the big stones and the strands of moss and other aquatic plants. Not only does the bird float buoyantly enough upon the water, but it swims well, often for many yards at a time. Dippers are exceedingly attached to certain reaches of the stream and to favourite nesting sites, using the latter year after year, often in spite of much disturbance. In this special valley we always used to find the nest in one particular spot—wedged under an overhanging rock on the bank of the stream. The nest of this species is a very characteristic one, and cannot readily be mistaken for that of any other British bird. In external appearance it bears some resemblance to that of the Wren, being of the same globular form, but a cursory examination will soon set any doubt at rest. In a great many—we might almost say the majority of—cases the nest is made outwardly of moss (sphagnum always by preference), amongst which a little dry grass is interwoven, especially round the entrance hole. This mossy globe is lined with grass roots and sometimes fine twigs, and then again lined with an enormous quantity of dead leaves all arranged very neatly layer over layer. There is never any lining of wool or feathers, and the five or six white eggs are almost exactly the same size as those of the Song Thrush. The Dipper is an early breeder even in the northern shires, commencing to build at the end of March or early in April, and rearing several broods during the course of the season. The young birds are most interesting little creatures. We retain many vivid remembrances of the actions of broods of Dippers that we have unexpectedly disturbed. The tiny creatures, when only able to fly or flutter for a few yards at most, will take to the water to escape pursuit just as readily as the chicks of a Grebe or a Moorhen, and are equally as alert and active in that element. We have upon more than one occasion known the four or five youngsters flutter out of the nest one after the other, and at once tumble into the stream below, where all efforts at capture have usually been unavailing. Not only do the nestlings dive and flutter about the water, but they are adepts at concealing themselves amongst chinks of the rocks or under the moss and herbage growing in the stream. When required for examination, we always found the best way to secure them was with our landing-net. The song of the Dipper declines considerably as spring merges into summer. The cock bird warbles most frequently whilst sitting on some water-encircled stone or rock, but we have known him to perch and sing in the alder-trees growing by the water-side. We always consider him to be in finest voice during March and April—a habit fully in keeping with his robust temperament, and one which instantly puts us in mind of a louder and sweeter singer, the Missel-thrush. The Dipper is the one constant avine dweller on the upland streams, consequently we must in fairness regard him as the most characteristic bird of these localities.

The Gray Wagtail.

Another and daintier species, however, is almost his equal in this respect, and that is the Gray Wagtail. This bird is more susceptible to the changing seasons, and at the approach of winter deserts the higher streams altogether, or comes down to the lower and more sheltered reaches of others. The Gray Wagtail is a familiar bird along all our Yorkshire and Derbyshire streams and rivers. We look for him quite as a matter of course when we reach the rocks, and the alder and birch and mountain-ash trees, just as we expect there to find the Dipper. But this is in summer mostly; in winter he becomes far more familiar, and during that season comes much nearer to the busy haunts of men. We have often seen Gray Wagtails in the bed of the grimy Don and Sheaf in the very heart of smoky Sheffield during mid-winter; and we know the bird as a winter resident about all the streams and sluices and dams in the series of Endcliffe Woods. The bird seems, however, closely attached to the stream in its upland solitudes, and at the first sign of spring goes back to favourite haunts among the moorlands and hills. We can recall many a romantic reach of the Derwent, the Wye, and the Dove, where the Gray Wagtail, the Dipper, and the Kingfisher might be watched together, the former bird, daintiest and most charming of its kind, deftly poised on a rock in mid-stream vigorously beating its long tail, looking like a single feather until it was opened as the startled bird took flight; the two latter species flying alarmed away arrow-like, following the winding waters, the one as a particoloured ball, the other as a blue undefined streak of refulgent light. So likewise has the Gray Wagtail oft been our sole bird companion on many a Highland water, both on the mainland and in Skye. We never tire of watching its sylph-like actions, the dainty way it poises on the stones or flits along before us stage after stage in undulating flight uttering its cheery chiz zit as it goes, or of admiring the exquisite blending of its showy yet delicately coloured plumage. We have often made his acquaintance upon more southern waters, far away in the remote south-west of England, but somehow he never there evokes the same feelings with which we greet him in northern haunts. The Gray Wagtail visits these upland streams for the purpose of rearing its young. Not every wanderer by the water-side is fortunate enough to get a peep at this bird’s domestic arrangements. It has, fortunately perhaps, a happy way of concealing its nest under some large stone or overhanging rock, or in a quiet nook, not necessarily in a secluded spot, but often close by the wayside, where the very audacity of the selection proves a source of safety. A scrappy little nest it is, dry grass and roots and such-like litter thrown carelessly together, and lined with hair or more rarely a few feathers; artless, yet possessing a rustic beauty if wanting that elaborate finish of more painstaking nest-builders. The five or six eggs are as unassuming as the nest that holds them, grayish-white freckled with brown, and perhaps with here and there a scratch of darker hue. The bird is an early breeder, making its nest in April, although we have remarked that in Scotland it is a little later in its operations. This pretty Wagtail still further endears itself to us by its attachment to a certain breeding-place, returning in many cases year by year to build its nest in one particular spot. Unfortunately the Gray Wagtail can claim but low rank as a songster. None of our British Wagtails are singers of much merit, and all confine their melody to fitful and short snatches of rambling song, almost invariably uttered as the bird hovers and flutters in the air. The Gray Wagtail’s charm rests in its pretty