176 GILBERT WHITE OF SELBOENE 1770 



Though there is endless room for observation in the field 

 of nature which is boundless, yet investigation (where a man 

 endeavours to be sure of his facts) can make but slow pro- 

 gress ; and all that one could collect in many years would 

 go into a very narrow compass."* 



Letter XXVIII. to Pennant, dated in the original 

 May 12th, 1770, thus commenced — 



"Dear Sir, — A journey of business, which detained me 

 longer from home than I expected, must be my excuse for 

 neglecting to answer your letter 'til this time. 



"My thanks are due for your obliging present of your 

 last publication ,-f which will conduce much to illustrate, 

 and improve the 'British Zoology': the designs are just 

 and the attitudes easy and natural; and the plates so well 

 engraved, that they will convey a much more adequate Idea 

 of an unknown animal to a young naturalist than words 

 possibly can. 



"Tho' you are embarked in a more extensive plan of 

 natural history, yet I am glad to find that you do by 

 no means give up the *Brit.[ish] Zoology'; that I think 

 should be your principal object; and I hope you will con- 

 tinue to revise it at your leisure, and to retouch it over 

 'til you have rendered it as perfect as the nature of the 

 work will admit of. If people that live in the country 



* Vide 'The Natural History of Selborne,' Letter V. to Barrington. 



t This must have been the 103 plates and 96 pages of text, which were issued 

 in this year by Pennant, forming (as already mentioned p. 162, in the note to 

 letter of 10th June, 1768) what has been called the ^^ third edition" of the 

 ' British Zoology ' ; but being in reality only the fourth and supplementary 

 volume of the second edition. It was printed at Chester by Eliz. Adams, 

 who also printed the third volume of the former edition ; but, unlike that, 

 does not bear Benjamin White's name, as publisher, in the title-page. 

 Complete copies of this volume are by no means common. The plates well 

 deserve White's praise of them. They are not signed, but were presumably 

 engraved by Mazel. — A, N. 



