A TRIP TO SELBOUNE. 271 



other places also. Naturalists and voluntary collectors cannot be everywhere, 

 and in that case they should have aids. We have associations and institu- 

 tions for the promoting and encouraging of almost everything of a legitimate 

 nature; but where, I would ask, where have we a single society or body 

 for the encouragement or the rewarding of individual, (or otherwise,) enter- 

 prise, as regards Natural History? I know of none, and I am sure much 

 good would accrue from such. Why there is nothing of the sort, I of course 

 cannot pretend to say; but surely our naturalists have never thought of the 

 matter, else their willing hearts, liberal minds, and ready hands would have 

 formed such an institution long ago. Let them think of it now, and act 

 accordingly. But perhaps I am speaking foolishly; if so, I beg to be excused; 

 and that the mistakes contained in the foregoing, being errors of judgment 

 and not of will, be forgiven, is the sincere wish of the humble author of 

 the "Birds of Strathbeg." 



Banff, August 2ith., 1854. 



A TRIP TO SELBORNE, IN 1854. 



BY O. S, ROUND, ESQ, 



There are few who have not heard of Selborne, and fewer, who, as lovers 

 of Nature, are not familiar with Gilbert White's history of that, his native 

 place; and many are the tourists, who, in their way through the beautiful 

 valleys of Surrey and Hants, have gone out of their path to visit a spot 

 invested with so much interest. I possess two editions of its history, one by 

 Sir William Jardine, the other by the late Mr. Edward Turner Bennett, 

 who, in the decline of his health, and, as it turned out, of his life, visited 

 and spent some delightful hours in this charming spot; and thus rendered lighter 

 the pressure of cares and sickness upon an exhausted frame and wearied spirit. 

 I had often read his brother's preface to this edition; and when I too have been 

 suffering from ill health, and exhausted spirits, from overtaxed energies in the 

 din of a great city, and the turmoil of business, I have looked with yearning 

 at those pages, and wished for some good genius to plant me suddenly in 

 the midst of those scenes, of which my fancy had raised up such a brilliant 

 image. 



During the summer of this year, an old and kind friend proposed a trip 

 to this locality; and when the latter end of August saw me at leisure to 

 take advantage of the proposition, which I need not say I had from the first 

 eagerly embraced, away we went, by open carriage to Rooking station, on the 

 South-western Railway, and by railway to Guildford and Alton, and found 

 ourselves upon the 30th. of that month, Avithin a few miles of the goal of, 

 to me at least, so many anxious aspirations. The day was so hot that we well 

 nigh lost the train; our steed literally could not get on, and Alton lay 

 as still in the sunshine as if its long down-hill street were untenanted. How- 



VOL. IV. 2 N 



