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1789 THE FEEN-OWL MALIGNED 205 



To the Rev, B. Ghurton. Seleburne, Sept. 1, 1789. 



Dear Sir, — Your letter of July 31st lies before me, and 

 informs me that you are now breathing your native air, 

 which, I hope, will agree with you : Malpas will moreover, 

 I trust, prove a mother to you, and not a step-mother. 

 The reason that Edmund White delayed his journey to 

 Oxford was the badness of the weather, which broke-up 

 the party; however, he went himself on the last day of 

 term but one, and took his degree on the last day. I 

 rejoice to hear that your good friend D"^ Townson continues 

 so well at his advanced time of life ; and desire my respects 

 to him. As to D"^ Chandler I have heard from him twice 

 in the course of this summer, and have looked him out an 

 house, the best house in Alton : he seemed in his last to pay 

 some attention to my information ; but I have doubts about 

 his settling, and do not depend on him as a neighbour. He 

 at present is much embarrassed by the troubles in France, 

 which would render a journey through that kingdom truly 

 dangerous. He talked in his last of going up to Basil, and 

 so down the Ehine to Holland. While I was in town I 

 turned over Mr. Gough's 'Camden':* it is truly a 

 Herculean labour: no wonder that there should be some 

 mistakes. In the map of Hants I saw Wetmer Forest in- 

 stead of Wolmer. Were I to live near you I verily believe 

 I should make an ornithologist of you. I have just found 

 out that the country people have a notion that the Fern-owl^ 

 or Eve-jarr, which they also call a Puckeridge, is very 

 injurious to weanling calves by inflicting, as it strikes at 

 them, the fatal distemper known to cow-leeches by the name 

 of puckeridge. Thus does this harmless, ill-fated bird fall 

 under a double imputation, which it by no means deserves, 



* Camden's ' Britannia ' had long been a familiar book to Gilbert White, 

 since a copy, published in 1695, edited by Gibson, had been presented to 

 him in his twentieth year by **the Rev. Mr. Brown, Vicar of Bray," as he 

 records on a flyleaf. 



