come into sight conspicuously. But I have sate in an orchard and watched them, several together, flying about among the apple-trees, and feeding on the ground, when they were unconscious of my presence. Their flight is singularly beautiful and interesting, for the obstructions they meet with compel them to make the most graceful and sudden evolutions to avoid collision.
And I remember very well, how, as I sate there, looking up from my work every now and again at the wing-clapping and testily-cooing strangers, sporting and squabbling by turns, I heard, what I had never heard in that garden before—the tapping of a nuthatch.
“Nuthatch piercing with strong bill.”
Southey.
“Rap-rap, rap-rap, I hear thy knocking bill.”
Montgomery.