The dipper is a little brown fellow, with a white front and throat, and a jovial little shout of his own. Very often, as we climb up through the wood, with the noise of the thousand tiny waterfalls swishing in our ears, we meet the dipper, perched on a stone by the side of one of the pools, looking as if he were making a careful map inside his head of everything he can see at the bottom of the water. As soon as he notices us, there is a brown flash in the air, and he is up, and over the next fall, and perched on a stone by the pool above. When we have climbed painfully up over the slippery rocks and the soft green earth with the help of hands and knees, and little trees, and clumps of heather, we find him sitting there, as gay and fresh as ever, and perfectly ready to dart up stream again. But sometimes we have been able to watch him, and see him dive into the pool; for he can swim under water as if he were fish and not a bird at all. He can swim round and round the bottom of the pools as easily as he can fly. The Imp thinks him a very fortunate person; for he can do everything. He can swim under water, he can hop about on land, and he can fly in the air. And when you can do all those three things, there is not much else left to want, is there? The other bird is as dainty and spruce a little fellow as you can imagine. All dark and white he is, looking like a pale and tiny magpie, with a long tail. His tail gave him his name, and I have been told a story about that. Here it is:--Once upon a time there was an old wise man, and he set himself to write a huge book about all the birds that ever are. So he went out with a lot of pens and ink and paper, and lived in a hut at the edge of the meadows, just sheltered by a wood. He told all the birds he knew what he was about, and they told all the others. So that they all came--albatrosses, and sparrows, and thrushes, and penguins, and blackbirds, and guillemots, and seagulls, and flamingoes, and peewits, and ostriches, and kingfishers--and fluttered and chattered in a huge crowd in the meadows by the hut. One by one they perched on a log in front of the old man, and he wrote down what they were like, and what were their names, and all about them. And this all worked very well until he came to the wagtail, when he could not think of a name for it. He put his head on one side and looked at the little mottled bird, and he said, "Well, my life, I do not know what to call you," and the little bird wagged its tail. The old man scratched his head, and said, "Well, you little speckled thing, what am I to call you?" and the little bird wagged its tail. The old man grunted and groaned, and made all the noises we all make when we are stuck over a very simple thing. He could not think of what to write, and he kept dipping his pen in the ink, and scratching his head with the other end of the penholder; and all the time the little bird wagged its tail. Its wagging muddled the old man worse than