12 COUNTRY LIFE 



and circling round the church tower from their more 

 numerous congeners who build under the house eaves, 

 and the martins who flit about the face of the sand- 

 banks. We may smile at the innocence of his un- 

 travelled raptures on " that magnificent range of 

 mountains, the Sussex Downs" ; but as we ride over 

 the ranges that have inspired the pens of such accom- 

 plished admirers of nature as Mr. Blackmore, and our 

 older acquaintance Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, it is the 

 recollections we owe to the " Natural History " that 

 give a zest to the ride by awakening our observation. 

 We remember what White had to tell about the cur- 

 lews and the wheat-ears, and those restless red-legged 

 choughs that are fluttering about the fissures in the 

 precipices. He could even warm us into a feeling of 

 personal regard for a misanthropic reptile like " the old 

 Sussex tortoise " ; and he has left particular pollards as 

 landmarks in the memory, which you begin anxiously 

 to inquire after on a visit to Selborne. 



That White made his book what it is, is the more 

 remarkable when we remember that it is merely natural 

 history. How many men there are who pass months of 

 each autumn in the country, unconsciously enjoying it 

 in absence of knowledge, and never deigning to confess 

 to an interest in anything that falls beneath the category 

 of game ! White was a clergyman of the old school 

 and could handle the gun on occasion, but he was very 

 little of a sportsman ; and so gentlemen of inferior 

 genius to his ought to write with a good many points 

 in their favour, when they are not only naturalists but 



