INTRODUCTION xxix 



III. THE HISTORY OF GILBERT WHITE'S BOOK. 



The original Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne, 

 published in 1789, is a handsome quarto of 468 + 13 pp. and 

 nine plates, mostly after Grimm's drawings. The large 

 folding frontispiece, giving a general view of Selborne, is 

 particularly attractive. Good copies now command high 

 prices. 



In 1795, two years after Gilbert White's death, Dr. Aikin, 

 joint author with his sister, Mrs. Barbauld, of the Evenings 

 at Home, produced A Naturalises Calendar, with Observations 

 in various branches of Natural History, extracted from the 

 papers of the late Rev. Gilbert White, M.A., of Selborne, 

 Hampshire, Senior Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford (Lon- 

 don, B. & J. White, 8vo, pp. 170 + 6). Dr. Aikin, when at 

 Warrington, had published a Natural History of the Year, 

 which White notices at the end of his last letter on the Natural 

 History of Selborne. The advertisement to the Naturalist's 

 Calendar explained that White had left behind him a series 

 of yearly books containing his observations on rural nature 

 between the year 1768 and his death. From these books 

 he had himself extracted what he required for the History 

 of Selborne, but some curious facts not selected for publica- 

 tion and all the observations subsequent to 1787 remained 

 untouched. The Naturalist's Calendar in its present form is 

 Dr. Aikin's work. He notes that the dates of flowering of 

 plants are chiefly extracted from the book of 1768 alone, and 

 that this was a rather backward year. 



White's materials were altogether insufficient for a natural 

 history of the year. Even when supplemented by Markwick's 

 observations made at Catsfield, near Battle, in Sussex, from 

 1768 to 1793 (and this is the form in which they are usually 

 reprinted), they are merely specimens of this sort of informa- 

 tion. I cannot say that I thirst for more. Naturalists are 

 only too prone to draw up registers, which exercise their 

 diligence without taxing their powers of reflection. To learn 

 why birds, insects and flowers observe particular seasons would 

 be much, but the mere accumulation of isolated facts has 

 already gone far enough. 



