o.] 



OF SELBORNE. 



267 



live much on hazel-nuts ; and yet they open them each in a 

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

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

 his knife; the second nibbles a hole with his teeth, as regular as 

 if drilled with a wimble, and yet so small that one would won- 

 der how the kernel can be extracted through it ; while the last 



THE HAWFINCH. 



picks an irregular ragged hole with its bill : but as this artist 

 has no paws to hold the nut firm 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, lie 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 



