293 CORRESPONDENCE OF GILBERT WHITE 



have the spirit to engage in new woods & plantations I Our 

 winter, as yet, has been mild, & open, & favourable to your 

 pursuits. Pray present my respects to your Lady, & desire 

 her to accept of my best wishes, & all the compliments of the 

 season, jointly with yourself. I have now squirrels in my 

 outlet: but if the wicked boys should hear of them, they will 

 worry them to death. There is too strong a propensity in 

 human nature towards persecuting & destroying ! 



I remain, with much esteem, Your's, &c. 



GIL. WHITE. 



LETTER XIX. 



MAESHAM TO WHITE. 



Stratton. Feb. 20. 



93. 



DEAR SIR, 



AFTER offering you my hearty thanks for the favour of your 

 pleasing & instructive letter of the 2 d of Jan. i must beg your 

 pardon, for omitting the two articles you had mentioned to 

 me. Indeed i thought i had answered them. I suppose the 

 wood-peckers do not attack the sound part of a tree ; but 

 where a bough has been broke off, & the stump died, & re- 

 mained some years on the tree before it was broken off'; then 

 when the bark skins over the rotten part, these birds attack 

 the skin over those false parts, where they find the holes 

 almost ready made for their use. Several of the edible chest- 

 nuts that i have planted, have the woodpeckers holes in them; 

 which i think i remember to have been dead stumps. But i 

 am not certain. As to Arthur Young, i never saw the man ; 

 but by the accounts of others, & from what i have read of his 

 works, i conclude him an abominable coxcomb. We have a 

 story of him, that a foreigner a Russian curious in husbandry, 

 went to see him in Suffolk. He not being at home, the stranger 

 enquired of his wife, how many acres of potatos he had that 

 year, to fatten his swine i think 500 ? She answered none ! 



