278 MUSIC. 



would at once pronounce on the sort of nest before him. 

 This is the case among fields, and woods, and wilds ; but, in 

 the villages round London, where mosses, and gossamer and 

 cotton from vegetables, are hardlj to be found, the nest of 

 the chaffinch has not that elegant finished appearance, nor is 

 it so beautifully studded with lichens as in a more rural dis- 

 trict ; and the wren is obliged to construct its house with 

 straws and dry grasses, which do not give it that rotundity 

 and compactness so remarkable in the edifices of that little 

 architect. Again, the regular nest of the house-martin is 

 hemispheric ; but where a rafter or a joist, or a cornice, may 

 happen to stand in the way, the nest is so contrived as to 

 conform to the obstruction, and becomes flat, or oval, or 

 compressed.* 



In the following instances, instinct is perfectly uniform 

 and consistent. There are three creatures — the squirrel, the 

 field-mouse and the nut-hatch {sitta europced), which live 

 much on hazel-nuts, and yet they open them each in a diffe- 

 rent way. The first, after rasping off the small end, splits 

 the shell into two with his long fore-teeth, as a man does 

 with his knife ; the second nibbles a hole with his teeth, so 

 regular as if drilled with a wimble, and yet so small that one 

 would wonder how the kernel can be extracted through it ; 

 while the last picks an irregular ragged hole with its bill ; 

 but as this artist has no paws to hold the nut fii'm while he 

 pierces it, like an adroit workman, he fixes it as it were, in a 

 vice, in some cleft of a tree, or in some crevice, when, 

 standing over it, he perforates the stubborn shell. We 

 have often placed nuts in the chink of a gate-post, where 

 nut-hatches have been known to haunt, and have always 

 found that those birds have readily penetrated them. Wh^e 

 at work they malte a rapping noise that may be heard at a 

 considerable distance. 



You that understand both the theory and practical part of 

 music, may best inform us why harmony or melody should so 

 strangely affect some men, as it were, by recollection, for 



* " Each creature has a wisdom for its good : 



The pigeons feed their tender offspring, crying, 

 "When they are callow, but withdraw their food 

 When they are fledge, that need may teach them flying." — HERBERT. 



