152 GILBERT WHITE OF SELBORNE mr 



some excisions, became the tenth in 'The Natural 

 History of Selborne,' the first nine letters describing 

 Selborne and its neighbourhood being written sub- 

 sequently for the book. On the 18 th of the preced- 

 ing April Gilbert White had gone to London, and 

 perhaps he had been then introduced to Pennant by 

 his brother Benjamin, who was Pennant's publisher. 



At this time Thomas Pennant, a Flintshire gentle- 

 man of good family and fortune, and with literary 

 tastes, was forty-one years of age. In the year 1755 

 he had commenced a correspondence with Linnaeus, 

 and in 1761 had published the first (folio) edition of 

 his 'British Zoology.' On February 25th, 1767, he 

 had been elected a Fellow of the Koyal Society, and 

 he mentions in his ' Literary Life,' published in 

 1793, that Mr. Benjamin White, bookseller, pro- 

 posed to me the republication of the 'British 

 Zoology,' which was carried into effect in the 

 succeeding year (1768). 



The original letter of August 10th, 1767, ad- 

 dressed " — Pennant, Esq., at Downing, in Flint- 

 shire, North Wales," commenced — 



August 10, 1767. 



At Selborne, near Alton, Hants. 



Sir, — Nothing but the obhging notice you were so kind 

 as to take of my trifling observations in the natural way, 

 when I was in town in the spring,* and your repeated 



* From this sentence one would naturally infer a personal introduction to 

 Pennant. Yet this seems to be distinctly negatived by a remark of Gilbert 

 White's in his original letter to Pennant of 28th February, 1769, and by 

 another in the original letter of 30th March, 1771. 



