CINCLUS AQUATICUS.

Water-Ouzel or Dipper.

Sturnus cinclus, Linn. Syst. Nat., tom. i. p. 290.

Turdus cinclus, Lath. Ind. Orn., vol. i. Do BIB},

Merula aquatica, Briss. Orn., tom. v. eos

Cinclus aquaticus, Bechst. Naturg. Deutsch., vol. iii. p. 808.
melanogaster, Temm. ?

 

In studying the habits and mode of life of the Water-Ouzel, the ornithologist is often led into the most
romantic parts of our island; and if solitude and beautiful scenery be objects of attraction to him, he may
while away many hours in pleasurable delight when thus engaged. To say that the Water-Ouzel never
leaves the rivers springing from the high tors of Dartmoor and Derbyshire, the rocky rivers of Wales,
Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Yorkshire, and all similar localities throughout England, Scotland, and
Ireland, would be wrong; for, although the bird mostly frequents such situations, it is sometimes found in
the small streams and rivers of other and less rocky parts of England. I have known a solitary individual
to be killed in the little river Chess, in Buckinghamshire; it has also been seen in the Colne, and in the
slow-flowing rivers of Lincolnshire and Norfolk. On the Continent, all countries of a mountainous character,
from Spain and Italy to Norway and Lapland, are inhabited by Water-Ouzels. In Holland and the Low
Countries it is of course not to be expected. Among fishermen it has a bad character, from their belief
that it feeds upon the ova of the trout and salmon; hence in some parts of Scotland it is destroyed by every
device: but the charge, im my opinion, has not been established, nor have I any reason, after taking consi-
derable pains to investigate the subject, to believe that it is just. During my visit, in November 1859, to
Penoyre, the seat of Colonel Watkyns, on the river Usk, the Water-Ouzels were very plentiful, and his keeper
informed me that they were then feeding on the recently deposited roe of the trout and salmon. By the
Colonel’s desire, five specimens were shot for the purpose of ascertaining by dissection the truth of this
assertion, but I found no trace whatever of spawn in either of them. Their hard gizzards were entirely
filled with larvae of Phryganea and the water-beetle (Hydrophilus). One of them had a small Bull-head
(Cottus gobio) in its throat, which the bird had doubtless taken from undera stone. I suspect that insects
and their larvee, with small shelled mollusks, constitute their principal food: and it may be that their labours
in this way are rather beneficial than otherwise; for as many aquatic insects will attack the ova and fry,
their destruction must be an advantage. I believe, indeed, that birds generally, nay always, do good rather
than harm in the check they give to the undue extension of insect life: and it is not a little interesting to
observe how their varied forms are adapted to this particular end; there is no element, and scarcely a situa-
tion in which insects can live, that is out of the reach of their more powerful enemies, the birds. This law of
adaptation I have repeatedly referred to in my work on the Trochilide, where I have, among other examples,
shown that the stout Brugmansie, with lengthened tubular corollas, are resorted to by Humming-Birds
with enormously lengthened bills and still longer tongues, especially suited for the exploration of their
inmost recesses; while, on the other hand, the little Alpine flowers are visited by species with bills of the
most diminutive size. The Swallow skims the surface of the water, the more powerful Swift hawks in the
air, the little Willow-Wren (Phyllopneuste trochilus) investigates the foliage of trees, the Wren ( Troglodytes
Europeus) the mossy bank, all for the same end and purpose ; while in the Water-Ouzel we have a bird which
so that even in this element the bird and the insects are side by

 

seeks its sustenance beneath the water,
side. In the diving-habits of the Water-Ouzel we find a seeming reversal of the law of gravitation; for as
the living bird is lighter than water, how is it able to descend and sustain rl at the porn: Some
assert that it is by clinging to the pebbles with its strong claws ; others, by considerable exertion and a
rapid movement of the wings. Its silky plumage is impervious to wet ; and hence, when the bird pea
to the surface, the pearly drops which roll off into the stream are the only euecuce of its econ Suber ou.
It is, indeed, very interesting to observe this pretty bird walk downa stone, a descend into the Wate rise
again perhaps at the distance of several yards Homan te cieenn, aan wing its Ba back to the place it had
just left, to perform the same manceuvre the next spe, the silence ae intenval broken by its cheerful
warbling song. The flight of the Water-Ouzel is straight, oe and rapid—in fact, me like that of the
Kingfisher, which it also resembles in its solitary habits. It & Oe seldom found i the same situa-
tions, the latter being a frequenter of rivers flowing through a fertile country, while the Water Ouzel resorts

to the rapid and limpid streams which descend the mountain-sides and run through glens at their base