192 



APPENDIX. 



to time ; while the interest attach- 

 ing to the Observations, and most of 

 the Observations themselves, as well 

 as the Summary of the Weather, 

 have been entirely done away with. 

 Translations of Latin quotations 

 have been printed as part of the 

 text, and various Latin documents 

 excluded from the Antiquities. Per- 

 haps Mr. Buckland is the only man 

 in England who would so treat such 

 a book an inheritance which every 

 one should regard with reverence. 

 He has shown a singular peculiarity 

 of judgment and sense of responsi- 

 bility in so " editing " it. 



With no references in the text, 

 of which they are, or are supposed 

 to be, illustrations, he adds 134 

 pages of notes, a very large part of 

 which, however interesting most of 

 them are, bear no relation whatever 

 to White's matter, but would be 

 suitable for a collection of illustra- 

 tions, odds and ends, or scraps in 

 natural history; and it wouJ4 not 

 be amiss to consign large parts of 

 most of the remaining notes to the 

 same repository ; while there are a 

 great many nice points in various 

 branches of natural history that 

 have not been commented on at all, 

 and 45 pages that have no notes of 

 any kind. It is to be sincerely 

 hoped that Mr. Buckland's book 

 will pass at its true value, and never 

 be allowed to corrupt the text of 

 the amiable White ; for it is only 

 the Natural History of Selborne al- 

 tered, mixed and mutilated, and at 

 the best only a part, although the 

 most part, of what has hitherto 



passed under that name. Mr. Buck- 

 land says that " White's Selborne has 

 held its own as a standard book for 

 a hundred years, and will probably 

 be as fresh -as ever a hundred years 

 hence ;" but it must be as White 

 left it, with additions distinguished 

 from the original matter. 



White was a man that doubtless 

 brooded over the books he read on 

 his favourite subjects. In regard to 

 that Mr. Buckland says, that 



" I have discovered that White had 

 not only deeply studied Derham and 

 also Ray, but [that] in many cases he 

 illustrates [illustrated] Derham's argu- 

 ments by his own observations." 



As if his work does not suffi- 

 ciently " discover " that ; for in it 

 we find Ray mentioned at least forty 

 times, and Derham frequently al- 

 luded to. 



Mr. Buckland also says : 



" We live in a beautiful and happy 



world Rest assured that if we, 



like White, love animals (commonly 

 called dumb because we cannot under- 

 stand their language), we shall never 

 experience the feeling of solitude." 



That is running natural history 

 into the ground. The world wants 

 a " philosophy of life " deeper and 

 more complex than that ; natural 

 history, in any of its branches, con- 

 tributing to it according to people's 

 opportunities and tastes running, or 

 being cultivated, in that direction. 



III. MR. FRANK BUCKLAND ON THE VIPER. 



IN the Dublin University Maga- 

 zine for July, 1875, appeared a 

 notice of Contributions to Natural 

 History and Papers on Other Sub- 

 jects, in which I find the following: 



" The principal articles in this volume 

 that have reference to natural history, 



originally appeared \nLandand Water" 

 "For instance, it is a vexed question 

 whether, under any circumstances, the 

 young retreat into the stomach of the 

 mother snake. A great authority [?], 

 Mr. Frank Buckland, affirms that they 

 do not ; while our author is as positive 



that they do. 



And he certainly, with 



JJ 



