50 GILBERT WHITE OF SELBORNE nso 



D*". Chandler, who is going to be very busy with Bishop 

 Beaufort's Register, from "Winchester, joins in respects. 

 When my beds are at liberty I will write : pray let me hear 

 soon. 



From the Naturalist's Journal — 



" July 1. We put Timothy into a tub of water, and found 

 that he sank gradually, and walked on the bottom of the 

 tub ; he seemed quite out of his element and was much 

 dismayed. This species seems not at all amphibious. 

 Timothy seems to be the Testudo grceca of Linnaeus. D"*. 

 Chandler, who saw the operation, says there is a species of 

 tortoise in the Levant* that at times frequents ponds and 

 lakes; and my Bro[ther] John White affirms the same of 

 a sort in Andalusia. 



"[July] 11. Finished my great parlor, by hanging curtains 

 and fixing the looking-glass." 



The "great parlour" — a name which, it should 

 perhaps be said, was at this time a recognised one for 

 a certain kind of sitting-room, and does not mean 

 merely " a large sitting-room " — being at last finished, 

 some little account of its construction and furnishing 

 may be of interest, and is obtainable from a bundle 

 of bills neatly tied up and endorsed by Gilbert 

 White, " Bills relating to the building of my great 

 parlor; in 1777, and furnishing." 



Of course, no contractor was employed, and the 

 labourers' wages appear in their accounts. One 

 George Kemp, whose descendants are living in 

 Selborne at this day, was the foreman bricklayer, and 



* The freshwater tortoise {Emys orbicularis) is found throughout the 

 greater part of Europe, and formerly inhabited England. — A. N. 



