A twitter of angry bat voices, shrill squeaks and flutters in the darkness.

Only in the tree-tops is the sleepy hum of bees, still busy with the flowers, and the last twitter of soft birds' voices.

Birds twitter.

Thus I love to hear the young girl's low, merry song, floating from the window of a country-house, half-broken by the cicala, the swallow's twitter, or the rustling leaves;I love to hear the joyous ripple of the harpsichord, bringing back, with some old music, times when that merry music stamped the hours, and took possession of themin the heartforever more!

There's not a flower, That hangs the dewy head, and seems to weep, As pallid blue-bells, crow-tyes and marsh lilies, But I'll plant here, and if they chance to wither, My tears shall water them; there's not a bird That trails a sad soft note, as ringdoves do, Or twitters painfully like the dun martlet,

The twitter of sparrows is, in itself, as prosaic a sound as there is in nature, but I never hear it on waking without a feeling of inward peace.

Unlike their two Northern relatives, they are eminently social, often traveling in small flocks, even in the breeding season, and keeping up an almost incessant chorus of shrill twitters as they flit hither and thither through the woods.

But about the dawn dreams twitter and arise, and circling thrice around the Happy Isles set out again to find the world of men, then follow the souls of the sailors, as, at evening, with slow stroke of stately wings the heron follows behind the flight of multitudinous rooks; but the souls returning find awakening bodies and endure the toil of the day.

You must consider this letter as Mary'sfor writing letters is such a trouble and puts her to such twitters (family modesty, you know; it is the way with me, but I try to get over it) that in pity I offer to do it for her.

Far sounds melt mellow on the ear: the bark, The bleat, the tinkle, whistle, blast of horn, The rattle of the wagon-wheel, the low, The fowler's shot, the twitter of the bird, And even the hue of converse from the road.

The nightingale's rapturous song has become a lazy twitter; the bird has done with courtship; it has a family in immediate prospect, if not one already screaming for food, and the musician has half lost his passion for music.

"There they sit with ranks unbroken, cheering on the fierce debate, Till the sunrise lights them homeward as they tramp through Storey's Gate, Racked with headache, pale and haggard, worn by nights of endless talk, While the early sparrows twitter all along the Birdcage Walk.

Save the noise made by themselves, the twitter of birds, and the occasional cry of some prairie dog routed out by their approach, the silence of the plains was intense.

This Barn Swallow was very much worried about something, and talked so fast to his friend the Tree Swallow, that his words sounded like twitters and giggles; but you would know they were words, if you could only understand them.

First one ran around a little and whistled; then one jumped right off into the air, making a whirring with his wings until he was way up out of sight, and then after a little while he came pitching down zig-zag, like a kite that has lost its tail, whistling something like the way a Swallow twitters, and making a queer twanging noise.

Ailie was in a twitter, as of old, and not able even yet to speak of her husband without an apologetic look to the ladies who had none.

'I am all of a twitter!

But his lordship was, as he had candidly said, 'all of a twitter,' and offered no help.

What a twitter I am in!

I am all of a twitter.

In the early spring, whilst the fields are still covered with snow, but which is melted on the roof, the latter affords the first announcement of spring, with the young sprouting grass where the sparrow twitters: "Spring comes!" Between Motala and Vadstene, close by the high road, stands a grass-turf houseone of the most picturesque.

Not a bird is heard to twitter, not a pine-tree moves: of what does the Southern summer dream here in the North, amongst pines and fragrant birches?

Do you hear those little chirps and twitters coming out of that piece of apple-wood?

With never a pausing, They bill and coo, And twitter gently: "Do thou love, too!" INVITATION How long wilt stand outside and cower? Come straight within, beloved guest.

That the Holy Spirit, which erst did brood O'er the Son of Man by Jordan's flood, In thine own pure form to the eye of sense, From its resting place has departed hence, And twitters the swallow, and wheels the bat O'er the mercy-seat where its presence sat?