218 WHITE 



In the following instances instinct is perfectly uniform and 

 consistent. There are three creatures, the squirrel, the field- 

 mouse, and the bird called the nuthatch (sitta Europcea), which 

 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, so regular 

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

 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 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, he 

 perforates the stubborn shell. We have often placed nuts in 

 the chink of a gate-post where nuthatches have been known 

 to haunt, and have always found that those birds have readily 

 penetrated them. While at work they make 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 assist some men, as it were by recollection, for days 

 after the concert is over. What I mean the following passage 

 will most readily explain : 



" Praehabebat porro vocibus humanis, instrumentisque har- 

 monicis musicam illam avium : non quod alia quoque non 

 delectaretur : sed quod ex musica humana relinqueretur in 

 animo continens quaedam, attentionemque et somnum contur- 

 bans agitatio ; dum ascensus, exscensus, tenores, ac mutationes 

 illas sonorum, et consonantiarum euntque, redeuntque per phan- 

 tasiam: cum nihil tale relinqui possit ex modulationibus 

 avium, quae, quod non sunt perinde a nobis imitabiles, non 

 possunt perinde internam facultatem commovere." Gassen- 

 dus in Vita Peireskii. 



This curious quotation strikes me much by so well repre- 

 senting my own case, and by describing what I have so often 

 felt but never could so well express. When I hear fine music 

 I am haunted with passages therefrom night and day ; and 

 especially at first waking, which, by their importunity, give me 

 more uneasiness than pleasure ; elegant lessons still tease my 



