216 THE RECTORY AND ITS BIRDS 



attract to themselves, or, again, accompanying, for 

 some half a mile together, a horse as it canters along, 

 now well behind and now well in front of him, feed- 

 ing, without any apparent effort, on the insect prey 

 which its flying hoof disturbs and spurns. Watch 

 him again, where his food most of all abounds, in 

 the water-meadows, threading, on a spring morning, 

 the sinuous course of a stream or shaving its smooth 

 surface, where it broadens out into a limpid pool or 

 lakelet. See how he sips the nectar as he flies, and, 

 taking his morning bath, will all but dip himself 

 beneath it, ruffling its surface into little ever- 

 expanding circles, till at last, not, I think, because 

 he is tired he does not seem to know what fatigue 

 is he will perch on the dead branch of some over- 

 hanging tree, between wind and water, and there, 

 for the space of several minutes together, he will 

 first shake off the dewdrops, and then, puffing out 

 his little frame, will delicately preen his bright 

 plumage, lifting first one wing and then another 

 high above his body, and burying, for a moment or 

 two, his chestnut head in the cosiest corner beneath 

 it ; and then, after pouring forth the ecstacy of his 

 heart in twittering song one of the most jubilant 

 sounds in Nature will launch off again into his 

 native air. 



