ive the food_"]

Although the dipper is not a web-footed bird, and is not classed by the
naturalists among the aquatic fowl, but is, indeed, a genuine passerine,
yet he can swim quite dexterously on the surface of the water. However,
his greatest strength and skill are shown in swimming under water, where
he propels himself with his wings, often to a considerable distance,
either with or against the current. Sometimes he will allow the current
to carry him a short distance down the stream, but he is always able to
stop himself at a chosen point. "Ever and anon," says Mr. John Muir, in
his attractive book on "The Mountains of California," "while searching
for food in the rushing stream, he sidles out to where the too powerful
current carries him off his feet; then he dexterously rises on the wing
and goes gleaning again in shallower places." So it seems that our
little acrobat is equal to every emergency that may arise in his
adventurous life.

In winter, when the rushing mountain streams are flowing with the sludge
of the half-melted snow, so that he cannot see the bottom, where most of
his delicacies lie, he betakes himself to the quieter stretches of the
rivers, or to the mill ponds or mountain lakes, where he finds clearer
and smoother water, although a little deeper than he usually selects.
Such weather does not find him at the end of his resources; no, indeed!
Having betaken himself to a lake, he does not at once plunge into its
depths after the manner of a duck, but finding a perch on a snag or a
fallen pine, he sits there a moment, and then, flying out thirty or
forty yards, "he alights with a dainty glint on the surface, swims
about, looks down, finally makes up his mind, and disappears with a
sharp stroke of his wings." So says Mr. John Muir, who continues: "After
feeding for two or three minutes he suddenly reappears, showers the
water from his wings with one vigorous shake, and rises abruptly into
the air as if pushed up from beneath, comes back to his perch, sings a
few minutes, and goes out to dive again; thus coming and going, singing
and diving, at the same place for hours."

The depths to which the cinclid dives for the food on the bottom is
often from fifteen to twenty feet. When he selects a river instead of a
lake for his winter bathing, its waters, like those of the shallower
streams, may also contain a large quantity of sludge, thus rendering
them opaque even to the sharp little eyes of the dipper