xxx Inttoductoon 



of the time was almost all contained. ffis " Antiquities of 

 Selborne " show him to have been also a man of great general 

 erudition, with a knowledge of and interest in medieval civilisa- 

 tion very rare in his day. But he was also by nature and habit 

 a keen observer of the wild life around him. When he settled 

 down at Selborne, to a placid bachelor existence, he occupied a 

 house in the main street of the village, still standing, though 

 much enlarged, known as The Wakes ; and, being a celibate 

 fellow, with few cares to worry him, he gave himself up almost 

 entirely to his favourite fad of watching the beasts and birds of 

 his native country. At the present day, unless one devotes one- 

 self to the minuter forms of life, one has little chance of dis- 

 covering anything new in Britain. But in White's day things 

 were different. The zoology and botany of the British Isles 

 were as yet very imperfectly understood ; the habits and ways of 

 plants and animals were an almost unknotvn study. Moreover, 

 the current books on natural history were still crammed with 

 mediceval fables, marvellous survivals of folk-tales, extraordinary 

 accounts of how siuallows hibernate under water, and how 

 decoctions of toads are a certain cure for the ravages of cancer. 

 It was the business of White's generation to substitute careful 

 and accurate first-hand observation for the vague descriptions, 

 the false surmises, and the wild traditional tales of earlier 

 authors. 



This it is in great part that gives their perennial charm to 

 these natural, personal, and delightful Letters. We are present, 

 as it were, at the birth of zoology ; we are admitted to see science 

 in the making. Europe at that period was full of patient and 

 honest observers like White, on whose basis the vast superstruc- 

 tures of Cuvier, Owen, and later of Darwin, were at last to be 

 raised. But most of them are now, as individuals, forgotten, 

 because they did not personally commit their work to print and 

 paper, save in the Transactions of learned societies. In White's 

 " Selborne" on the other hand, we have crystallised and pre- 



