316 HAMPSHIRE DAYS 



British species ? If this rule had not been followed by 

 zoologists, even our beloved little rabbit would not be 

 a native, to say nothing of our familiar brown rat and 

 our black-beetle: and the pheasant, and red-legged 

 partridge, and capercailzie, and the fallow-deer, and a 

 frog, and a snail, and goodness knows how many other 

 British species, introduced into this country by civilised 

 man, some hi recent times. And, going farther back in 

 time, it may be said that every species has at some 

 time been brought, or has brought itself from other- 

 where every animal from the red deer and the white 

 cattle, to the smallest, most elusive microbe not yet 

 discovered; and every plant from the microscopical 

 fungus to the British oak and the yew. The main 

 thing is to have a rule in such a matter, a simple, 

 sensible rule, like that of the zoologist, or some other ; 

 and what we should like to know from the botanists is 

 Have they got a rule, and, if so, what is it ? There 

 are many who would be glad of an answer to this 

 question: judging from the sale of books on British 

 wild flowers during the last few years, there must be 

 several millions of persons in this country who take an 

 interest in the subject. 



One bright September day, when the mimulus was 

 in its greatest perfection, and my new pleasure in the 

 flower at its highest, I by chance remembered that 

 Gilbert White, of Selborne, in the early part of his 

 career, had been curate for a time at Swarraton, a 

 small village on the Itchen, near its source, about four 



