158 GILBERT WHITE OF SELBORNE 1768 



regard to the birds of Barbary and Andalusia. Pray give 

 my humble respects to Mr. Banks and tell him I shall not 

 forget him next month with regard to the Lathrcea Squam- 

 maria. If he will do me the honour to come and see me 

 he will find how many curious plants I am acquainted with 

 in my own Country. I request also that you will be 

 pleased to pay my compliments and thanks to Mr. Barring- 

 ton for the agreeable present of his Journal, which I am 

 filling up day by day. Buntings I saw in plenty last week." 



Letter XVL, written on April ISth, 1768, 

 commenced — 



" As I had set my mind on the pleasure of your conversa- 

 tion, so I was in proportion disappointed when I found that 

 you could not come. But as your business may be over 

 now, I shall still live in hopes of seeing you at this beautiful 

 season, when every hedge and field abounds with matter of 

 entertainment for the curious. If you could come down at 

 the end of this week, or the beginning of next, I should be 

 ready to partake with you in a post-chaise back to town on 

 the second of May." 



On June 2nd, Mulso writes : — 



"I hope Mr. Etty rejoices in his agreeable accession of 

 preferment ; I wish you had obtained your views in that 

 neighbourhood." 



Mr. Etty's new living was the vicarage of Whit- 

 churcli, near Pangbourne, to which he was presented 

 by Lord Chancellor Camden. Mulso's hint as to 

 his friend's views referred, as appears later on, to 

 the Oriel living of Ufbon Nervett in Berkshire. In 

 July Gilbert White visited his brother Harry at 

 Fyfield, whose rectory there was the "Gentleman's 

 house," where, he tells Pennant (in Letter XVIII. ), 



