resembles the Common Wren in character, always in a
hnrry, diving into the most rapid streams or boiling pools
below a fall, and on emerging flying to a stone, often in
mid-stream, whence he pours out a very pleasant song
with continual bobbings and bowings of the body and
jerks of the short ta il; one eminently attractive point
about this bird is that his cheery song is continued
throughout the winter months.
The Water-Ousel, as our bird is frequently called, lays
six or seven white eggs early in the year, in a large
shapeless nest of green moss and dry leaves, with an
aperture on one side of i t ; this structure is usually
placed among stones on a ledge of rock in the close
neighbourhood of running water, sometimes in an old
stone wall, and not uncommonly actually under, or, as I
should perhaps say, behind, a waterfall.
