176 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 



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 bird called the nut-hatch (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 would wonder how the kernel can be 

 extracted through it ; while the last picks an irregular 

 ragged hole with it's bill : but as this artist has no paws to 

 hold the nut firm while he pierces it, like an adroit work- 

 man, he fixes it, as it were, in a vice, in some cleft of a 

 tree, or in some crevice ; when, standing over it, he per- 

 forates 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. 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 affect some men, as it were by recollection, 

 for days after a concert is over. What I mean the follow- 

 ing passage will most readily explain : 



" Praehabebat porro vocibus humanis, instrumentisque 

 harmonicis musicam illam avium : non quod alia quoque 

 non delectaretur ; sed quod ex musica humana relinque- 

 retur in animo continens quaedam, attentionemque et 

 somnum conturbans agitato ; dum ascensus, exscensus, 

 tenores, ac mutationes illae sonorum, et consonantiarum 

 euntque, redeuntque per phantasiam : cum nihil tale 

 relinqui possit ex modulationibus avium, quae, quod non 

 sunt perinde a nobis imitabiles, non possunt perinde inter- 

 nam facultatem commovere." Gassendus in Vitd Peireskii. 



This curious quotation strikes me much by so well 

 representing my own case, and by describing what I have 



