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, as 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 biil: 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 explain:

"Præhabebat porrò vocibus humanis, instrumentisque harmonicis musicam illam avium: non quod aliâ quoque non delectaretur; sed quod ex musicâ humanâ relinqueretur in animo continens quædam, attentionemque et somnum conturbans agitatio; dum ascensus, exscensus, tenores, ac mutationes illæ sonorum, et consonantiarum euntque, redeuntque per phantasiam :-cum nihil tale relinqui possit ex modulationibus avium, quæ, quod non sunt perinde a nobis imitabiles, non possunt perinde internam facultatem commovere."-Gassendus.1

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 importunity, give me more uneasiness 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.

1 66

He preferred the music of birds to vocal and instrumental harmony, 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 imitable by us, they cannot equally excite the internal faculty."---Gassendus, in the Life of Peiresc.

LETTER CI.

TO THE HONOURABLE 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 common in some parts of the kingdom; and I have received formerly several dead specimens from Gibraltar. This bird much resembles the white-throat, but has a more white or silvery breast and belly; is restless and active, like 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, hopping about on the grass-plots and mown walks.

One of my neighbours, an intelligent and observing man, informs me, that, in the beginning of May, and about ten minutes before eight o'clock in the evening, he discovered a great cluster of house-swallows, thirty at least, he supposes, perching on a willow that hung over James Knight's upper-pond. His attention was first drawn by the twittering of these birds, which sat motionless in a row on the bough, with their heads all one way, and, by their weight, pressing down the twig so that it nearly touched the water. In this situation he watched them till he could see no longer. Repeated accounts of this sort, in spring and fall, induce me greatly to suspect that house-swallows have some strong attachment to water, independent of the matter of food; and, though they may not retire into that element, yet they may conceal themselves in the banks of pools and rivers during the uncomfortable months of winter.

1 Lesser white-throat (Sylvia curruca, Temm.), and not the pettichaps; the song is very sweet, and more perfect in its notes than that of the whitethroat it is shy, wary, and even petulant in avoiding intruders.

One of the keepers of Wolmer Forest sent me a peregrinefalcon, which he shot on the verge of that district, as it was devouring a wood-pigeon. The Falco peregrinus, or haggard falcon, is a noble species of hawk seldom seen in the southern counties. In the winter of 1767 one was killed in the neighbouring parish of Farringdon, and sent by me to Mr. Pennant into North Wales. Since that time I have met with none till now. The specimen mentioned above was in fine preservation, and not injured by the shot: it measured forty-two inches from wing to wing, and twenty-one from beak to tail, and weighed two pounds and a half standard weight. This species is very robust, and wonderfully formed for rapine: its breast was plump and muscular; its thighs long, thick, and brawny; and its legs remarkably short and well set the feet were armed with most formidable, sharp, long talons: the eyelids and cere of the bill were yellow; but the irides of the eyes dusky; the beak was thick and hooked, and of a dark colour, and had a jagged process near the end of the upper mandible on each side: its tail, or train, was short in proportion to the bulk of its body: yet the wings, when closed, did not extend to the end of the train. From its large and fair proportions it might be supposed to have been a female; but I was not permitted to cut open the specimen. For one of the birds of prey, which are usually lean, this was in high case in its craw were many barley-corns, which probably came from the crop of the wood-pigeon, on which it was feeding when shot for voracious birds do not eat grain; but, when devouring their quarry, with undistinguishing vehemence they swallow bones and feathers, and all matters, indiscriminately. This falcon was probably driven from the mountains of North Wales or Scotland, where they are known to breed, by rigorous weather and the deep snows that had lately fallen.

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1 See my Tenth and Eleventh Letters, pages 28 and 34.

LETTER CII.

TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON.

My near neighbour, a young gentleman in the service of the East India Company, has brought home a dog and a bitch of the Chinese breed from Canton; such as are fattened in that country for the purpose of being eaten they are about the size of a moderate spaniel; of a pale yellow colour, with coarse bristling hairs on their backs; sharp upright ears, and peaked heads, which give them a very fox-like appearance. Their hind legs are unusually straight, without any bend at the hock or ham, to such a degree as to give them an awkward gait when they trot. When they are in motion, their tails are curved high over their backs like those of some hounds; they have a bare place each on the outside from the tip midway, that does not seem to be matter of accident, but is somewhat singular. Their eyes are jet black, small, and piercing; the insides of their lips and mouths of the same colour, and their tongues blue. The bitch has a dew-claw When taken cut into a

on each hind leg; the dog has none. field, the bitch showed some disposition for hunting, and dwelt on the scent of a covey of partridges, till she sprung them, giving tongue all the time. The dogs in South America are dumb; but these bark much in a short thick manner, like foxes; and have a surly, savage demeanor like their ancestors, which are not domesticated, but bred up in sties, where they are fed for the table, with rice-meal, and other farinaceous food. These dogs having been taken on board as soon as weaned, could not learn much from their dam; yet they did not relish flesh when they came to England. In the islands of the Pacific Ocean the dogs are bred up on vegetables, and would not eat flesh when offered them by our circumnavigators.

We believe that all dogs, in a state of nature, have sharp, upright, fox-like ears; and that hanging ears, which are esteemed so graceful, are the effect of choice breeding and cultivation.