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 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 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 following passage will most readily
explain:

'Praehabebat porro vocibus humanis, instrumentisque harmonicis
musicam illam avium: non quad alia quoque non delectaretur; sed
quod ex musica humana relinqueretur in animo continens
qaemdam, attentionemque et somnum conturbans agitatio; 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 internam
facultatem commovere.' -- GASSENDUS in Vita Peireskii.