206 Summer Studies of Birds and Books CHAP. 



holds its own, issuing its report yearly. Neither 

 athletics nor examinations can kill the old instinct 

 of Englishmen ; it is as strong as ever, and the 

 scientific spirit of the age has given it a useful 

 turn. 



All this literature of the country, all this youth- 

 ful endeavour, may be traced back not only to the 

 natural instincts of the English country gentleman, 

 like so many other institutions of ours, but to the 

 work of the first country gentleman who could shake 

 himself free from the tyranny of books, and describe 

 what he saw around him in simple and engaging 

 English. White's book has taken possession of the 

 English mind as securely as the Complete Angler, or 

 even as fiobinson Crusoe. At the distance of a 

 century one may well ask why this is so, and what 

 has given the book its enduring quality. This I 

 will try to do ; but first I must say a word of the 

 man himself, for I think it is in one characteristic 

 of his, and one that in these days some might call 

 a weakness, that the secret of his fame is to be 

 found. 



He was born in 1720 at the village which will 

 always be associated with his name, and in which 

 he spent almost the whole of his long life. The 

 connection of his family with Selborne was, however, 

 an accidental one. His grandfather, after whom 

 he was named Gilbert, was a Fellow of Magdalen 



