192 Transactions of the [Sess. 



ist ; for when these fits are upon me I lose all the pleasing notices 

 and little intimations arising from rural sounds ; and May is to me 

 as silent and mute, with respect to the notes of birds, &c., as Aug- 

 ust ; " and he quotes Milton's words — 



" Wisdom at one entrance quite shut out." 



The well-known ' Natural History of Selborne ' was first pub- 

 lished in 1789. It consists of a series of letters extending over a 

 period of twenty years, the first letter being written when White 

 was about forty-five years old. The letters were addressed to 

 Thomas Pennant and the Hon. Daines Barrington, — written with 

 so much enthusiasm, painstaking accuracy, and simplicity of style, 

 that White's ' Selborne ' became, what it still remains, one of the 

 standard popular favourites, " without which no English library is 

 complete." The edition in two volumes is the most perfect and 

 charming one which has been published : it is edited by the late 

 Frank Buckland. The illustrations of those picturesque spots so 

 often mentioned by White — as the Hanger, the Plestor, and the 

 rocky lane — are beautifully executed ; but I consider many of the 

 illustrations of birds are not so true to nature as those of Yarrell 

 or Bewick. After White's death his house became for many years 

 the charming residence of Professor Bell. The Plestor or Pleystow, 

 in the centre of the village, signifies a playing-place or play- 

 ground. In the midst of the Plestor stood in old times a vast Oak, 

 with a short squat body and huge horizontal arms, extending 

 almost to the extremity of the area. This venerable tree, sur- 

 rounded with stone steps and seats above them, was, we are told, 

 the delight of old and young, and a place of much resort in summer 

 evenings, where the former sat in grave debate, while the latter 

 frolicked and danced before them. 



I have never visited Selborne, but it is spoken of by Buckland 

 as a very pretty place — a perfect type of English woodland scenery 

 and country life. It can be reached from London in two hours by 

 rail, and a five-mile walk or drive from Alton station ; and the vil- 

 lage is very little altered since White's time. I wish it were 

 within easy reach of our Club. 



White's style of writing is clear, concise, painstaking, and accu- 

 rate, and he is most careful always to distinguish the record of a 

 fact as the result of his own observation from what has been com- 

 municated to him by others. The naturalist's calendar contained 

 in White's work is most copious and useful : it is a record of occur- 

 rences noticed by White in Hampshire, and by William Markwick 

 in Sussex, placed in two columns, and records the arrival and de- 

 parture of migratory birds, the dates of nidification of these and 

 others, the appearances of insects, and the dates of flowering of 

 many of our wild plants. It is remarkable tliat the dates of the ar- 



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