22O Summer Studies of Birds and Books CHAP. 



beloved village ; but in spite of his local isolation, he 

 kept himself well acquainted with what was doing 

 in the world of science, both by the purchase of 

 books and by frequent correspondence with friends. 

 He had no neighbours of his own tastes, and it 

 became all the more necessary for him to make the 

 most of friends at a distance. Now it was part of 

 the singular good fortune of his whole life that he 

 had no less than four brothers, all with tastes suited 

 to his own; two at least of these were good natu- 

 ralists, and another became the most noted publisher 

 of his day in the department of natural history. 

 John settled at Gibraltar, and is often mentioned by 

 Gilbert as sending him valuable information ; Thomas 

 became a Fellow of the Eoyal Society, and a writer 

 of some note; Benjamin was the publisher of his 

 brother Gilbert's book. Brothers are not usually 

 good correspondents, but the spell of the Hampshire 

 home never failed in holding this wonderful family 

 together. Long before he began his more elaborate 

 correspondence with men of greater renown, Gilbert 

 must have fallen into the way of compressing his 

 accounts of home and Selborne within the limits of 

 the old-fashioned letter-sheet ; and as letters were 

 then in vogue in literature, it was only natural that 

 when he was at last persuaded to publish, he should 

 keep to the form in which he had all through life 

 been accustomed to express his thoughts. And we 



