ht-schwalbe, which in
some places abides. 'Crapaud-volant' is ugly, but descriptive, the
brown speckling of the bird being indeed toadlike, though wonderful and
beautiful. Bewick has put his utmost skill into it; and the cut, with
the Bittern and White Owl, may perhaps stand otherwise unrivaled by any
of his hand.

Gould's drawing of the bird on its ground nest, or ground contentedly
taken for nest, among heath and scarlet-topped lichen, is among the
most beautiful in his book; and there are four quite exquisite drawings
by Mr. Ford, of African varieties, in Dr. Smith's zoology of South
Africa. The one called by the doctor Europaeus seems a grayer and more
graceful bird than ours. Natalensis wears a most wonderful dark
oak-leaf pattern of cloak. Rufigena, I suppose, blushes herself
separate from Ruficollis of Gould? but these foreign varieties seem
countless. I shall never have time to examine them, but thought it not
well to end the titular list of the swallows without notice of the
position of this great tribe.

VIII.

148. MERULA FONTIUM. TORRENT-OUZEL.

Sturnus Cinclus. L.
Merle d'Eau. F.
Bach-Amsel. T.
Merla Aquaiola. I.
Cinclus Aquaticus. G. and Y.
Water Ouzel. B.

Turdus Cinclus, Pennant; Common Dipper, Y.; Didapper, Doucker, Water
Crow, Water Piot, B.; Cincle Plongeur, Temminck; Wasser Trostel, Swiss.

The scientific full arrangement, according to Yarrell, is thus:--

1. Order--INSESSORES.
2. Tribe--Dentirostres.
3. Genus--Merulidae.
4. Species--Cinclus.
5. Individual--Aquaticus.

You will please observe that some of the scientific people call it a
blackbird--some a thrush--some a starling--and the rest a Cincle,
whatever that may be. It remains for them now only to show how the
Cincle has been developed out of the Winkle, and the Winkle out of the
Quangle-Wangle. You will note also that the Yorkshire and Durham mind
is balanced between the two views of its being a crow or a magpie. I am
content myself to be in harmony with France and Italy, in my 'Merula,'
and with Germany in my _Torrent_-Ouzel. Their 'bach' (as in Staubbach,
Giesbach, Reichenbach) being essentially a mountain waterfall; and
their 'amsel,' as our Damsel, merely the Teutonic form of the
Demoiselle or Domicilla--'House-Ouzel,' as it were, (said of a nice
girl)--Domicilla again being, I think, merely the transposition of
Ancilla Domini,--Behold, the handmaid of the Lord: (see frontispiece to
third volume of 'Modern Painters')