OF SELBOENE, 
289 
martin is hemispheric; but where a rafter, or a joist, or a 
cornice may happen to stand in the waj, the nest is so con- 
trived 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 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 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 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 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 pene- 
trated 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 recollec- 
tion, for days after a concert is over. What I mean the 
following 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 rolinqueretur in 
of those of a more sombre description in the neighbourhood of London 
be intended to answer the same purpose, namely, to render the nests 
secure from observation ? — Ed 
^ The Scandinavian nuthatch, described by Linnreus (" Sjst. Nat." i. 
p. 177,) as Sitta europcea, differs from that found in Great Britain, and 
the latter, therefore, should be distinguished as Sitta ccEsia, that being 
the oldest name applied by Meyer (" Taschenb. Deutsch. Vogel," i. p. 
128) to the Raip« bird as observed in Germany. — Ed. 
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