WHITE'S SELBORNE xvii 



pet bays and laurestines. In vain did he try to solve the 

 riddle of the great preponderance of females among the chaf- 

 finches in winter ; while he bewailed the fact that he had no 

 companion " to quicken his industry and sharpen his atten- 

 tion." Moreover, the occasional " turbulence " of the weather 

 in the spring interfered with his walks and investigations ; and 

 though the rasping voice of the katydid was absent, the din 

 of the field-crickets was so great in hot weather as " to make 

 the hills echo." Perhaps his greatest tribulation was con- 

 nected with his uncertainty of the hybernation of the swallow 

 kind, and his saddest refrain the regret of the poet, 



" Doiseau qui charme le bocage, 

 Hilas ! ne chante pas toujours" 



existing conditions which even the wishing-stone on the neigh- 

 boring hillside was powerless to exorcise. 



The hand of time has left comparatively little mark upon 

 the external scene at Selborne since White lived and recorded, 

 and the fairies were wont to dance nightly on Wolmer Common. 

 In the churchyard, the giant yew still casts its shade, and at 

 dusk the rooks chant their Aves as they wing their way to 

 the deep beechen woods of Tisted and Ropley. The old male 

 yew, then twenty-three feet in circumference, has increased 

 several feet in girth since White last sat beneath its " pillared 

 shade" and mused upon its symbol of immortality, that 

 while " generation after generation might be gathered to their 

 fathers, it still proclaims to those who remain that all, like its 

 evergreen unchanging hue, were yet living in another world 

 that life which had been the object of their desire." 1 The 

 church, which dates from the reign of Henry VII., has recently 

 been " restored " ; and its irregular pews, " of all dimensions 

 and heights, patched up according to the fancy of the own- 

 ers," as is recorded in " The Antiquities of Selborne," have 

 been removed and replaced by low modern benches. Gilbert 



1 The age of the Selborne yew is unknown. The Ankerwyke yew, near Wind- 

 sor, under which Henry VIII. is said to have met Anna Boleyn, is supposed to be 

 upwards of one thousand years old; while, according to Decandolle, thirty centu- 

 ries must be assigned as the age of the patriarchal tree at Braburne, and from 

 twenty-five to twenty-six centuries to that at Fortingal. 



