34 A SUMMER DAY AT SELBORNE. 



of which he writes so often, and which by his writings is known (at least 

 by name) wherever the English language is spoken. 



Sitting on the sheep-down, we can look around and over those scenes 

 he so faithfully describes. In the distance is Wolmer Forest and pond; 

 close by to the right is Nore Hill, beautifully wooded; below nestles the 

 quiet village; and far away stretches the lovely scene, till the view is closed 

 by the horizon, on the far-famed Downs of Sussex, round to Eyegate in 

 Surrey. One pleasing feature in the sbeep-downs are the bells attached to 

 the sheep by a ribbon round their neck. Where there is nothing else to 

 disturb the solitude, it is a pleasant, although not harmonious sound, the 

 tinkling of each bell every nibble the sheep make. A train of associations 

 are at once called up; we are led back to the time of the patriarchs, 

 when the riches of that day were so invested, even to the time when Abel 

 offered up the firstlings of his flock, till that glorious time when the shep- 

 herds, watching their flocks by night on Bethlehem's plains, beheld the 

 star pointing the birth of our and the world's Great Shepherd. 



It is somewhat interesting, too, on looking down from this eminence, to 

 see the Swift and Swallow sporting below, the same as in the days of 

 White; and coming through the woods, we are saluted by the mellow 

 pipe of the Blackbird, the commanding note of the Thrush, and the laughing- 

 like notes of the Willow Wren, all going on as they did sixty years ago. 

 And now the thought, after having seen all these quiet scenes, and knowing 

 the unobtrusive life White led, is forced upon us, how is it with these 

 materials and in so simple a way has White produced such a book, which 

 is prized by young and old, by scientific and non-scientific readers? It may 

 be advanced as the grand cause that he "described everything simply and 

 truthfully, recorded only as facts such as were known, and could be proved 

 to be such, and he never forgot that one hand only fashioned all the 

 objects which gave him pleasure and interest to observe, and that the same 

 power regulates their continuance or change," In his forty-ninth letter he 

 says, "It is now more than forty years that I have paid some attention 

 to the Ornithology of this district, without being able to exhaust the 

 subject; new occurrences still arise as long as enquiries are kept alive." 

 Now this applies to a single parish. It shews very strikingly that Natural 

 History, when studied in the way and in the light White studied it, is 

 no mere waste of time, as too many suppose. If it can call up fervent 

 reflections and sagacious reasonings, if it can keep a mind engaged for 

 forty years without cloying, if it can yield pure delight and unblemished 

 happiness, if its pursuit can keep mind and body in good health till the 

 threescore years and ten are overreached, surely it may be argued this of 

 itself is no small gain in this changing scene. But when we come to add, 

 and to feel as he did, that the works of Nature are indeed the works of 



