Xiv INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 
White was never married, but he had several brothers and 
sisters ; and the family generally seems to have been possessed 
of very considerable ability. I am not aware that any opinion 
has been handed down of his powers as a preacher; but if we 
may judge from the letters, his sermons would probably possess 
that simplicity of language and straightforwardness of truth 
which would impress and render them acceptable to the minds 
of his hearers. The letters, though simply written, show both 
the poet and the scholar; and the mass of facts which they 
contain in relation to our native animals, formed the main 
foundation to some of the principal zoological works of that 
time. Pennant often seeks information from him, and quotes 
his authority in the description of the swallow. He writes: 
‘To the curious monographies on the swallow of that worthy 
correspondent (Mr. White) I must acknowledge myself in- 
debted for numbers of the remarks above mentioned;” and 
he is elsewhere frequently referred to. 
Of his four brothers all of them seem to have had tastes 
somewhat akin to Gilbert’s ; they devoted a considerable por- 
tion of their leisure to pursuits connected with literature or 
some of the branches of natural history. It is greatly to be 
regretted that the manuscripts of John White have not been 
recovered. He also was an English clergyman; but for some 
portion of his life resided at Gibraltar, where he made 
collections and notes evidently with the view of working out 
and publishing a volume upon the natural history of that pro- 
montory—a ‘‘ Fauna Calpensis,” as he termed it. It must 
have been, in fact, written ; for in Letter LIII. to Mr. Barrington, 
Mr. White writes, “I shall now transcribe a passage from a 
‘Natural History of Gibraltar,’ written by the Rev. John 
White, late vicar of Blackburn, in Lancashire, but not yet 
