12 NATURAL HISTORY 



Hanger from the strong westerly winds. The air is soft, but 

 rather moist from the effluvia of so many trees ; yet perfectly 

 healthy and free from agues. 



The quantity of rain that falls on it is very considerable, 

 as may be supposed in so woody and mountainous a district. 

 As my experience in measuring the water is but of short date, 

 I am not qualified to give the mean quantity . g I only know 



that 



Inch. Hund. 



From May 1, 1779, to the end of the year there fell 28 37 ! 



From Jan. 1, 1780, to Jan. 1, 1781 27 32 



From Jan. 1, 1781, to Jan. 1, 1782 30 71 



From Jan. 1, 1782, to Jan. 1, 1783 50 26 ! 



From Jan. 1, 1783, to Jan. 1, 1784 33 71 



From Jan. 1, 1784, to Jan. 1, 1785 33 80 



From Jan. 1, 1785, to Jan. 1, 1786 31 55 



From Jan. 1, 1786, to Jan. 1, 1787 39 57 * 



The village of Selborne , and large hamlet of Oakhanger, 

 with the single farms, and many scattered houses along the 



g A very intelligent gentleman assures me (and he speaks from upwards 

 of forty years' experience) that the mean rain of any place cannot be as- 

 certained till a person has measured it for a very long period. " If I had 

 "only measured the rain," says he, "for the four first years, from 1740 to 

 " 1743, 1 should have said the mean rain at Lyndon was 16| inch for the 

 " year ; if from 1740 to 1750, 18| inches. The mean rain before 1763 was 

 "20 j from 1763 and since, 25| j from 1770 to 1780, 26. If only 1773, 

 " 1774 and 1775, had been measured, Lyndon mean rain would have been 

 " called 32 inches." 



[The gentleman here alluded to was Thomas Barker, Esq., of Lyndon 

 Hall, in the county of Rutland, Gilbert White's brother-in-law. T. B.] 



* [That the local circumstances of Selborne, surrounded by hills, and 

 many of those hills more or less covered with trees, are the cause of 

 the high rate of rainfall to which it is subject, cannot be doubted; and 

 the results given in the text are fully borne out by a long succession 

 of observations carefully made by myself. The annual average for 25 

 years, from 1850 to 1874 inclusive, amounts to 32-074 inches. In the 

 year 1852 there fell 48-81 inches; and in 1873, 49-56, which is the largest 

 amount I have recorded, slightly surpassed, however, by that mentioned 

 in the text for 1782, amounting to 50'26. On a comparison with a large 

 number of other places in various parts of the kingdom, the monthly re- 

 ports contained in Mr. Symons's interesting Meteorological Journal, show 

 that, eliminating such exceptional localities as Seathwaite, &c., the fall 

 of rain at Selborne is much above the average. T. B.] 



