LETTER I. 1 



To the Honourable Daines Barrington. 



. , SELBORNE, June 30/4 1769. 



EAR SIR, When I was in town last month I 

 partly engaged that I would sometime do myself 

 the honour to write to you on the subject of 

 natural history ; and I am the more ready to 

 fulfil my promise, because I see you are a gentle- 

 man of great candour, and one that will make 

 allowances ; especially where the writer professes 



to be an out-door naturalist, one that takes his observations from the 



subject itself, and not from the writings of others. 



1 The letters to Daines Barrington were printed in the first edition separately 

 from those to Pennant, being arranged as a second part and disposed consecutively. 

 Many subsequent editors have seen fit to re-arrange both sets according to dates, 

 interlarding these with those to Pennant. I do not think this procedure tends 

 either to clearness or accuracy. The reader does not always notice the superscrip- 

 tion of the individual letter, nor can he easily bear in mind the particular "you" 

 addressed on each occasion. Moreover, the whole character of the letters in the 

 second series is different from that of the letters in the first. Pennant was a 

 naturalist who wrote to White mainly for practical information : Barrington was a 

 dilettante theorist who generally desired confirmation of his often hasty and some- 



