Scala: Self-Recursive val in function

Question

Inside functions self-recursive val's don't seem to be allowed by the compiler. See these examples here:

    object Test {
      val nats1 : Stream[Int] = 1 #:: (nats1 map (_ + 1)) // OK
      def testfun() : Int = {
       def nats2 : Stream[Int] = 1 #:: (nats2 map (_ + 1)) // OK
       val nats3 : Stream[Int] = 1 #:: (nats3 map (_ + 1)) // Error!
       nats2.head
      }
      def main(args : Array[String]) {
        println(testfun)
      }
    }

That the first definition work isn't very surprising, but what about the third one? Why are self-revursive val's inside functions in Scala not allowed?

That's a pity because sometimes you want to keep a definition local but you want it to be a value and not a def which is evaluated totally every time.

In general that restriction doesn't seem to be necessary. For example the following Haskell-Code works:

    module Test where
    nats1 :: [Int]
    nats1 = 1 : (map (+1) nats1)

    testfun :: Int
    testfun = let nats2 = 1 : (map (+1) nats2)
              in head nats2

    main :: IO ()
    main = putStrLn $ show testfun