MR. FRANK BUCKLAND AND WHITE OF SELBORNE. 



might even get Messrs. Lee and 

 Burr, and others of that " way," to 

 back him and prove his case before 

 many a "justice," unless the un- 

 fortunate man stumbled over some 

 " vagabond attorney " who was " up 

 to snakes," and stretched them all 

 on the rack of the cross-question, 

 and completely floored or dished the 

 prosecution, and immediately began 

 an action for false imprisonment 

 and slander. If the applicant for 

 the pound waited to see the result 

 of the examination before getting 

 his money, he might be turned out 

 like a dog for having insulted the 

 savants, notwithstanding his most 

 solemn asseverations that he actually 

 saw the viper swallow her brood, in 

 whatever part of her they might be 

 found. 



This "offer" of Mr. Buckland, 

 however meaningless it is in its 

 nature and indelicate in its appeal 

 to naturalists, has been well circu- 

 lated for years back, and will be so 

 for the future, unless the press 

 should say, " Stop that advertise- 

 ment," till he does the following : 

 ist, That he should give his ex- 

 aminations of vipers which he says 

 showed that the young had never 

 been born ; zd, that he should tell 

 the world how vipers, as a matter 

 of fact, are born ; and, 3^, that if he 

 finds they are born " singly, in the 

 open air, with a covering on them, 

 how can he possibly resist the con- 

 clusion that those found inside of a 

 mother, as described, had entered 

 her by the mouth?" This Mr. 

 Buckland can easily do, since it 

 rests with himself; whereas his offer 

 is addressed to every one, and what 

 is everybody's business is nobody's 

 business.* 



* Thus far of this article I offered to a 

 London natural history publication, with 

 the request that it might be returned if 

 not accepted ; and it came back, with 

 every courtesy on the part of the editor. 

 The remainder of the article was sent (o 

 another London journal that should 

 certainly have printed it, but took no 

 notice of it, as I shall mention at p. 198, 



In White's Natural History of 

 Selborne, published by Bickers & 

 Son (1875), we have the original 

 text, and the original notes marked 

 G. W., so that the work, as it came 

 from the hands of the author, stands 

 out clearly from remarks made by 

 others. Judged by this standard, 

 Mr. Buckland's edition is an amaz- 

 ing production, which it would 

 be difficult to characterize in be- 

 coming language. He disposes of 

 White's notes as follows: 13 (some 

 of them considerably mangled) are 

 embodied in the text; 24 (not al- 

 ways copied correctly) are used as 

 notes, with nothing to distinguish 

 them from his own (of which he has 

 about 30); and 24 are entirely sup- 

 pressed. The language of the text 

 is changed to incorporate the notes 

 with it ; and other liberties have 

 been taken, but to what extent can 

 only be ascertained by collating the 

 two publications, which would be 

 the more troublesome, owing to the 

 letters being arranged differently 

 from those in the original edition. 

 The changes that may have been 

 made are not likely to improve the 

 language, if we judge from Mr. 

 Buckland's Preface. White's Ob- 

 servations on Nature have been 

 omitted, and in their place about a 

 third of them, without any explana- 

 tion given, have been inserted in 

 brackets in the body of some of the 

 letters, and in the most clumsy way ; 

 the word Observations being placed 

 outside of the brackets, and some- 

 times omitted. Quotation marks 

 have been left out when they should 

 appear ; and occasionally Mr. Buck- 

 land's own remarks printed, with 

 nothing excepting the sense to dis- 

 tinguish them from White's text. 

 In this way he breaks in upon the 

 genius and beauty of the work a 

 charmingly desultory production, in 

 which we can never imagine what 

 even the next paragraph is likely to 

 be ; frequently the same subjects be- 

 ing alluded to again and again, ex- 

 actly as they were written from time 



