1774 MOKE DEAWINGS FKOM PENNANT 255 



To the Rev. John White. Selborne, June 18th, 1774. 



Dear Brother, — It pleases me to find that my little 

 monography entertained you; it makes its own excuse for 

 being short. The rest will not offend in that way. Pray, 

 make all the objections freely that occur. 



Linnseus's letter is polite and entertaining and instruc- 

 tive. But, pray, what does he mean by saying that your 

 Hirundo hyemalis (for so I shall still call it) is varietas 

 apusi for the ajpus and melha only perhaps have omnibus 

 qiiatuor digitis anticis; while your swaUow has a back-toe 

 like other birds; besides the bill of your ci'pvis and melba 

 are much hent, but that of the Hirundo hyemalis is streight. 



I have just received a letter from Mr. Pennant, wherein 

 he says that he has lately sent twenty-nine more drawings 

 to Brother Benjamin, being the whole that were copyed 

 from your Gibraltar cargoes. They are to be kept as long as 

 wanted. 



Hambledon* is a place that I have a strong dislike to, 

 on account of its morals and dissipation; besides Mr. Hale 

 has a young partner, should he want to leave business by 

 and by. 



My anecdote from Valentia ia taken from Willughby's 

 ' Ornithology.' In one of your letters you regret the 

 trouble of transcribing your Fauna. A writing master 

 would take this trouble off your hands for a small sum, 

 but with this disadvantage, that no man can transcribe 

 his own works without seeing plans that he can alter for 

 the better ; a benefit which is entirely lost where a stranger 

 is amanuensis. I wish Jack would earn your book; I 

 mentioned the conditions, at which he smiled. 



Pray return the printed monography without fail. If 



* A few miles from Bishop's Waltham in Hants. When curate of Diirley 

 Gilbert White would have known it well. In 1753 his account-book shows 

 a visit there to Mr. Hale, who was probably a surgeon about whom John 

 White had now inquired on his son's behalf. 



