WHITE-THROAT. 
239 
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 
mos-t readily explam : — 
"Pr^habebat porro vocibus hnmanis, instrtimentisque har- 
monicis musicam illam avmm : non quod alia quoque non delec- 
taretur ; sed quod ex musica humana relinqueretur in animo 
continens quaedam, attentionemque et sommim conturbans 
agitatio ; dum ascensus, exscensus, tenores, ac mutationes illae 
sonorum, et consonantiarum euntque, redeuntqiie 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." 
Gassendus in Vita PeiresJcii. 
This curious quotation strikes me much by so well representing 
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 imjjortunity, give me more un- 
easiness than pleasure : elegant lessons still tease my imagination, 
and recur irresistibly to my recollection at seasons, and even 
when I am desirous of thinking of more serious matters. 
I am, &c. 
LETTER LVIL To the Hon. DAINES BARRINGTON. 
A RARE, and I think a new, little bird frequents my garden, 
which I have great reason to think is the pettichaps : it is com- 
mon in some parts of the kingdom ; and I have received for- 
merly several dead specimens from Gibraltar. This bird much 
resembles the white-throat, but has a more white or rather sil- 
Tery breast and belly ; is restless and active, hke the willow- 
wrens, and hops from bough to bough, examining every part 
for food ; it also runs up the stems of the crown-imperials, and, 
putting its head into the bells of those flowers, sips the liquor 
which stands in the nectarium of each petal. Sometimes it feeds 
on the ground like the hedge-sparrow, by hopping about on the 
grass-plots and mown walks.* 
* This is the white-breasted fauvet, or, as some term it, the lesser whitethroat {ficedula 
gc/TTula), a species common enough in the southern counties, though nowhere so abundant as ths 
