1776 'FAUNA CALPENSIS' 299 



this be always the case, what becomes of our supposition, 

 which is, that by contact and condensation the water in 

 vapour is drawn from the air to the water ; and that thus 

 upland ponds are mostly supplyed ? 



I never saw an electrometer. Our neighbourhood is all 

 bad with colds ; and among the rest myself also : some have 

 eruptive fevers. Y" affect., 



Gil. White. 



To the Rev. John White. 



London, Jan. 30, 1776. 



Dear Brother, — As you have enjoined me to speak my 

 sentiments with respect to your work, you must not think 

 me didactic and forward in the following pages. 



It will be well to sweeten and diversify your tables of 

 weather &c with an alternate page of zoological calendar, 

 and interesting coincidences : for the generality of readers 

 are apt to skip over whatever looks like figures. Your 

 Journal will be pretty long. 



An index perhaps has never entered your head : yet such 

 a thing may be expected in so large a work. 



You may no doubt, if you please, invert your system as 

 well as Brown. You are not sworn to follow the arrange- 

 ment of Linn. : by that means the subject certainly rises on 

 the reader. The Swedes admire Brown notwithstanding. 

 Faunae Calpensis primitim will no doubt be more modest ; yet 

 might your full History well deserve to be called a Fauna. 

 In strictness Linn.'s ' Fauna Suecica ' is no more a perfect 

 Fauna than your own, since some hundreds of animals have 

 escaped his observation. Brother Ben. objects to a Latin 

 title to an English book. Suppose you call it 'Fauna 

 Calpensis or a Zoological History of Gibraltar &c.,' for 

 Natural History it must not be called, since the plants are 

 wanting. There is such a spirit gone forth against whatever 

 is Linnaean, that I would not make the title page Linnsean. 



