THE DIPPER, OR WATER-OUSEL.
The Dipper, or Water-ousel, of which Mr. Weir has given us a charming
and faithful portrait, is very like a wren in form and action, with
its round body and lively little tail. Its mode of flight, however,
so nearly resembles the kingfisher that, in some places, the country
people mistake it for the female of that bird. But it is neither wren
nor kingfisher, nor yet related to either of them. It is the nice
little water-ousel, with ways of its own, and a cheerful life of its
own, and the power of giving pleasure to all lovers of the free country
which is enriched with an infinite variety of happy, innocent creatures.
The upper part of the head and neck, and the whole back and wings of
this bird, are of a rusty-brown; but, as each individual feather is
edged with gray, there is no deadness of colouring. The throat and
breast are snowy white, which, contrasting so strongly with the rest of
the body, makes it seem to flash about like a point of light through
the dark shadows of the scenes it loves to haunt.
I said above that this bird gave pleasure to all lovers of nature. So
it does, for it is only met with in scenes which are especially beloved
by poets and painters. Like them, it delights in mountain regions,
where rocky streams rush along with an unceasing murmur, leaping over
huge stones, slumbering in deep, shadowy pools, or lying low between
rocky walls, in the moist crevices and on the edges of which the wild
rose flings out its pale green branches, gemmed with flowers, or the
hardy polypody nods, like a feathery plume. On these streams, with
their foamy waters and graceful vegetation, you may look for the
cheerful little water-ousel. He is perfectly in character with the
scenes.
[Illustration:
DIPPERS AND NEST. [Page 34.
]
[Sidenote: _The Home of the Dipper._]
And now, supposing that you are happily located for a few weeks in
summer, either in Scotland or Wales, let me repeat my constant advice
as regards the study and truest enjoyment of country life and things.
Go out for several hours; do not be in a hurry; take your book, or
your sketching, or whatever your favourite occupation may be, if it be
only a quiet one, and seat yourself by some rocky stream amongst the
mountains; choose the pleasantest place you know, where the sun can
reach you, if you need his warmth, and if you do not, where you can yet
witness the beautiful effects of light and shade. There seat yourself
quite at your ease, silent and still as though you were a piece of
rock itself, half screened by that lovely wild rose bush, or tangle of
bramble, and before long you will most likely see this merry, lively
little dipper come with his quick, jerking flight, now alighting on
this stone, now on that, peeping here, and peeping there, as quick as
light, and snapping up, now a water-beetle, now a tiny fish, and now
diving down into the stream for a worm that he espies below, or walking
into the shallows, and there flapping his wings, more for the sheer
delight of doing so than for anything else. Now he is off and away,
and, in a moment or two, he is on yonder gray mass of stone, which
rises up in that dark chasm of waters like a rock in a stormy sea,
with the rush and roar of the water full above him. Yet there he is
quite at home, flirting his little tail like a jenny wren, and hopping
about on his rocky point, as if he could not for the life of him be
still for a moment. Now listen! That is his song, and a merry little
song it is, just such a one as you would fancy coming out of his jocund
little heart; and, see now, he begins his antics. He must be a queer
little soul! If we could be little dippers like him, and understand
what his song and all his grimaces are about, we should not so often
find the time tedious for want of something to do.
We may be sure he is happy, and that he has, in the round of his small
experience, all that his heart desires. He has this lonely mountain
stream to hunt in, these leaping, chattering, laughing waters to bear
him company, all these fantastically heaped-up stones, brought hither
by furious winter torrents of long ago—that dashing, ever roaring,
ever foaming waterfall, in the spray of which the summer sunshine
weaves rainbows. All these wild roses and honeysuckles, all this maiden
hair, and this broad polypody, which grows golden in autumn, make up
his little kingdom, in the very heart of which, under a ledge of rock,
and within sound, almost within the spray of the waterfall, is built
the curious little nest, very like that of a wren, in which sits the
hen-bird, the little wife of the dipper, brooding with most unwearied
love on four or five white eggs, lightly touched with red.
This nest is extremely soft and elastic, sometimes of large size, the
reason for which one cannot understand. It is generally near to the
water, and, being kept damp by its situation, is always so fresh,
looking so like the mass of its immediate surroundings as scarcely to
be discoverable by the quickest eye. When the young are hatched they
soon go abroad with the parents, and then, instead of the one solitary
bird, you may see them in little parties of from five to seven going on
in the same sort of way, only all the merrier because there are more of
them.
[Illustration]