Identifier: birdsnatureinnat05chic (find matches)
Title: Birds and nature in natural colors : being a scientific and popular treatise on four hundred birds of the United States and Canada
Year: 1913 (1910s)
Authors:
Subjects: Birds -- North America
Publisher: Chicago : A.W. Mumford, Publisher
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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bird of great energy and activity and in theromantic places that it inhabits it seems to delight in leading an observer to fol-lowing it along the banks of some canyon stream. Chirping, it will hop from stoneto stone as the observer follows. With a jerking motion of the tail it will con-tinue leading until it reaches a pool, perhaps formed at the base of a cascade at theupper end of the chasm. Here it will deliberately wade into the water and dis-appear, to reappear some distance away, and probably on the opposite side of thepool. -Mr. Lord says: It is truly a queer bird, and if one did not know itshabits and should some day see him plunge into a swift mountain stream anddisappear, he might su))pose he had witnessed a case of desperate bird-suicide.But did he know this odd creatures ways, he would look for it to come up andland on a rock at some point quite well below its place of plunge. Not only doesthe Dipper enter the water for the purpose of gathering food from the bottom of 842
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the stnaiii or pool. Imt appartiuly also to satisfy its love of water in the \hjo\, therushing current and the (la>hinj^ cascatle. Its nest is also built where not only the parents may enjoy the sound of thefalling waters, but also where the young may be trained and fed in the environ-ment which they will occupy ever afterwards. The food of the Dij)per chiellyconsists of the mollusks and fresh water insects, both in their larval and naturalstates, that it finds as it makes its way along the Ixjttom by the combined actionof its wings and feet, it also feeds ujxju insect life upon the shore or that whichit may catch ujwn the surface of the water, as it stands ujKjn some stony perch. The nest of the Dipper is usually placed in a niche of the rock slightly abovethe stream or behind some cascade. The materials used vary somewhat and areusually such as are to be found in the immediate vicinity. It is described as acup-shaped mass of grass and moss lined with dry leaves and fibers. It is

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