INTRODUCTION xvii 



by name Dr. Chandler, to whom he was under great obliga- 

 tions in his account of the antiquities of Selbome. 



To Pennant, as a man who had the ear of the public, and 

 was the best-known English zoologist of the day, Gilbert 

 White communicated his discoveries and observations. His 

 first letters to Pennant (beginning with Letter X.) were 

 written without any intention of independent publication. 

 When he collected these and others into a book, he not only 

 retained Pennant's name, but addressed to him additional 

 letters, which had been written to complete the history. The 

 first forty-four letters profess to be letters to Pennant, but 

 only those which bear a date were actually sent by the post. 



The Hon. Daines Barrington (1727-1800), to whom the 

 rest of the letters in the Natural History of Selborne were 

 addressed, was a son of the first Viscount Barrington. He 

 entered at the Bar, and became a Welsh judge. His Obser- 

 vations on the Statutes are said to contain much curious 

 information, which has been ransacked by writers on juris- 

 prudence. He edited (very badly) King Alfred's Orosius. 

 But his chief contributions to knowledge related to natural 

 history and kindred subjects. 



If the reader should happen to come across the quarto 

 volume of Miscellanies, by the Hon. Daines Barrington 

 (London, 1781, pp. 558 and viii), he will easily learn from it 

 a good deal respecting White's favourite correspondent, and 

 also something about the state of natural history in England 

 when the History of' Selborne was preparing for the press. 



The early pages are occupied by " Tracts on the Possibility 

 of Reaching the North Pole ". Instances are quoted of sea- 

 captains who got within 2, 1 and even 30 7 of the Pole, 

 which leads the modern reader to conclude that old log-books 

 may be very untrustworthy. One result of the information 

 respecting the polar regions which he brought together was 

 that the Royal Society applied to the Admiralty for an 

 Arctic expedition. The request was granted, and Captain 

 Phipps was sent out in 1773. The expedition returned the 

 same year, having reached a latitude of 80*5, a very moderate 

 success if Barrington's expectations had been just. The essay 

 on the Turkey seeks to prove that, though the bird was 

 b 



