WHITE OF SELBORNE 9 



d'ennuyer est celui de tout dire." White's method is 

 to select and to select carefully the particulars which 

 have human interest ; all the rest he leaves out. He 

 displays the skill of the old-fashioned letter-writer, 

 and selects from the particulars of which his memory 

 is full as carefully as Madame de Sevigne. White 

 never forgets that his birds and insects are, or lately 

 were alive. Too many naturalists write about them 

 as they might write of Skiddaw or Stonehenge, being, 

 it would seem, chiefly solicitous to note where they 

 are to be found. But White thinks of their hardships 

 and expedients. His moderation and good sense are 

 shown by his keeping well within his own range. 

 Others might, like Buffon, develop their theories of the 

 earth in magnificent rhetoric, but White is content to 

 " stoop to what he understands." Few naturalists of 

 the last century require so little correction or 

 explanation in the present day. 



The frosty weather has sent me once more to read 

 White's account of the snow-storms and frosts of 

 1768, 1776 and 1784. How different is he from the 

 mechanical narrator, to whom all facts are equally 

 interesting ! White thinks about everything that he 

 notes down. Observe his reflections upon the effect 

 of intermittent cold upon trees, and shrubs, and bees ; 

 upon the endurance of cold by small Insects ; upon 

 the occurrence of great cold on low ground when it is 

 warmer at places a few hundred feet higher. Notice 

 too, the practical turn of his mind. He bids the 

 planter shake off the snow daily, so as to lessen the 

 damage due to repeated melting and freezing of the 

 snow upon the shrubs. He notes the shrubs which 



