170 GILBERT WHITE OF SELBORlSrE 1769 



"Your friend Mr. Barrington (to whom I am an entire 

 stranger) has been so obliging as to make me a present 

 of one of his Naturalist's Journals, which I shall hope to fill 

 in the course of the year." 



It was to Pennant, then, that the introduction to 

 Daines Barrington was probably owing, 



Barrington gives honourable mention to his friend 

 and correspondent in his ' Miscellanies,' published 

 in 1781, as a "well-read and observant naturalist." 

 And Gilbert White returned the compliment in 

 Letter LI. to him, in which he writes, ''I have now 

 read your ' Miscellanies ' through with much care and 

 satisfaction." 



After a visit to Oxford in July, 1769, when he 

 noticed ''vast flocks of young wagtails on the banks 

 of the Cherwell," the Naturalist received his friends, 

 Mr. Skinner, of C.C.C, Oxford, and Mr. Sheffield, of 

 Worcester College, at Selborne, the latter of whom, 

 as he records, "went into Wolmer Forest and pro- 

 cured me a green sandpiper." Of this visit Mulso 

 remarks in August that "the world will, I presume, 

 be the better hereafter for your joint labours." 



The following formed the commencement of what 

 became, when revised. Letter XXV., September 1st, 

 1769, to Pennant: — 



"I am to acknowledge my tardiness in answering your 

 kind Letter of June 9th, and have to plead business, work- 

 men, and company ; and yet I ought not to have been 

 silent for so many weeks. 



"In a former letter of May the 9th you mention a 



