196 GILBERT WHITE OF SELBORNE 1739 



for respiration. At the instance of Sir Joseph Banks, my 

 brother-in-law, Mr. Barker, of Rutland, has just written 

 a circumstantial account of the long frost last winter, which 

 is to be sent to the members of the Academy of Sciences 

 at Paris, who, it seems, have made similar applications to 

 the literati in other parts of Europe. Mr. B. is of opinion 

 that the usual method of breaking holes in the ice is 

 pernicious. 



You did well to be zealous for the friend of your friend : 

 but were you apprized that there was to be no election at 

 Oriel last Easter? Mrs. Etty wrote at the same time on 

 the same occasion. 



Littleton Etty is appointed one of the Clerks of the 

 General Post Office at the stipend of £40 per annum and 

 Mrs. E. like a good mother, is going to live in London to 

 superintend the morals of her son. If you had stayed 

 three days longer at Xmas we had made a staunch 

 ornithologist of you for life; for a young farmer brought 

 us in two rare water-birds, a Gooseander and Dun-diver, a 

 drake and a duck of the genus Mergus merganser Linn. 

 The beauty of the colours, and the curious formation of 

 the parts would have struck you with wonder; and would 

 have obliged you to reflect on the wisdom of God shown 

 in the works of Creation ; and perhaps in no instance more, 

 than in that of the birds of the air ! 



D"" Chandler has sent us several curious remarks made 

 by him and his friends respecting the swallow kind even so 

 far S. as Rome and Naples. 



The world has been so indulgent to my book, that I begin 

 to hope that the editors will be paid for the trouble and 

 expense they have bestowed on the publication. 



Mr. Gough's Gamden^^ I see, comes out in three vol. fol. 



* Richard Gough (1731-1809), an English antiquary, began to prepare 

 an edition in English of Camden's ' Britannia' in 1773. The work appeared 

 in 1789. 



