"... There are three creatures, the squirrel, the , and the bird called the (sitta Europæa), 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 this with his knife; the second nibbles a hole with his teeth, so regular as if drilled with a , ...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."