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 prac- 

 tical 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 following passage will explain : — 



" Prashabebat porro vocibus humanis, instrumen- 

 tisque harmonicis musicam illam avium : non quod 

 alia quoque non delectaretur ; sed quod ex musica 

 humana relinqueretur in animo continens quasdam, 

 attentionemque et somnum conturbans agitatio ; dum 

 ascensus, exscensus, tenores, ac mutationes illas sono- 

 rum, et consonantiarum euntque, redeuntque per 

 phantasiam : — cum nihil tale relinqui possit ex modu- 

 lationibus avium, quse, quod non sunt perinde a nobis 

 imitabiles, non possunt perinde internam facultatem 

 commovere." — Gassendus.^ 



* " He preferred the music of birds to vocal and instrumental har- 

 mony, not that he did not take pleasure in any other, but because the 

 latter left in the mind some constant agitation, disturbing the sleep and 

 the attention ; whilst the several variations of sound and concord go and 

 return through the imagination ; whereas no such effect can be produced 

 by the modulation of birds, because, as they are not equally imi table by 

 us, they cannot equally excite the internal faculty." — Gassendus in the 

 Life of Peiresc. 



162 



