Their powerful feet and long curved claws
enable them to hold on to stones at the bottom, and thus to retain their
position while picking up insects, shells, etc. As they frequent
chiefly the most rapid and boisterous torrents, among rocks, waterfalls,
and huge boulders, the water is never frozen over, and they are thus
able to live during the severest winters. Only a very few species of
dipper are known, all those of the old world being so closely allied to
our British bird that some ornithologists consider them to be merely
local races of one species; while in North America and the northern
Andes there are two other species.
Here then we have a bird, which, in its whole structure, shows a close
affinity to the smaller typical perching birds, but which has departed
from all its allies in its habits and mode of life, and has secured for
itself a place in nature where it has few competitors and few enemies.
We may well suppose, that, at some remote period, a bird which was
perhaps the common and more generalised ancestor of most of our
thrushes, warblers, wrens, etc.
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