xiv INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 



White was never married, but he had several brothers and 

 sisters ; and the family generally seems to have been possessed 

 of very considerable ability. I am not aware that any opinion 

 has been handed down of his powers as a preacher ; but if we 

 may judge from the letters, his sermons would probably possess 

 that simplicity of language and straightforwardness of truth 

 which would impress and render them acceptable to the minds 

 of his hearers. The letters, though simply written, show both 

 the poet and the scholar ; and the mass of facts which they 

 contain in relation to our native animals, formed the main 

 foundation to some of the principal zoological works of that 

 time. Pennant often seeks information from him, and quotes 

 his authority in the description of the swallow. He writes : 

 " To the curious monographies on the swallow of that worthy 

 correspondent (Mr. White) I must acknowledge myself in- 

 debted for numbers of the remarks above mentioned ; " and 

 he is elsewhere frequently referred to. 



Of his four brothers all of them seem to have had tastes 

 somewhat akin to Gilbert's ; they devoted a considerable por- 

 tion of their leisure to pursuits connected with literature or 

 some of the branches of natural history. It is greatly to be 

 regretted that the manuscripts of John White have not been 

 recovered. He also was an English clergyman ; but for some 

 portion of his life resided at Gibraltar, where he made 

 collections and notes evidently with the view of working out 

 and publishing a volume upon the natural history of that pro- 

 montory a " Fauna Calpensis," as he termed it. It must 

 have been, in fact, written ; for in Letter LIII. to Mr. Barrington, 

 Mr. White writes, " I shall now transcribe a passage from a 

 ' Natural History of Gibraltar,' written by the Rev. John 

 White, late vicar of Blackburn, in Lancashire, but not yet 



