BIRDS OF THE WAVE AND WOODLAND 123 



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, look- 

 ing 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 ivith strong bi/i." 



South EY. 



" Rap-rap, rap-rap^ I hear thy knocking bill." 



Montgomery. 



Tracing up the small smith, I found it busy on the 

 trunk of an old Scotch fir, where it found, if not ants, a 

 colony of some other small insects, for it was picking them off 

 right and left as they fled along the bark. This bird has 

 discovered that if it raps upon a bough, the insects in the 

 crevices are startled from their hiding-places by the jarring, 



