Introduction xiii 



several years ago in the summer, and frequented an orna- 

 mental piece of ground, which joins to my garden, for some 

 weeks. They used to march about in a stately manner, 

 feeding in the walks many times in the day, and seemed 

 disposed to breed in my outlet ; but were frightened and 

 persecuted by idle boys who would never let them be at 

 rest." Poor Hoopoes ! it seems that they want nothing 

 better than to come amongst us and nest, were it not for the 

 attentions of the " idle boys," and the still more objectionable 

 man with a gun and a will to slay any rare thing. The 

 accounts which find their way from time to time into the 

 papers, make it very clear that we are not given to exhibiting 

 much hospitality to rare visitors to these islands. White 

 also mentions the crossbill, a rare bird which occasionally 

 visits us, having even, during severe winters, been seen in 

 considerable numbers in the neighbourhood of London. 



For the rest White's letters must speak for themselves. 

 Some of his statements or surmises have turned out to be in- 

 accurate, and the valuable parts of his work have become part 

 of the general corpus of scientific knowledge, but the charm 

 of his simple style and the pictures of the life of the time 

 which are occasionally revealed to us, have rendered his work 

 part of the permanent literature of the country, like Walton's 

 Angler^ of which one is often reminded when reading White, 

 a book of no use to fishermen, but not to be exchanged for a 

 wilderness of more technically accurate works. But over and 

 above their claims as a piece of literature, White's letters 

 possess the valuable power of stimulating readers themselves 

 to go out and look nature in the face as their writer did, and 

 seek to see for themselves the wonderful things which are 

 ever visible to the observing eye. 



From the naturalist's point of view White may be regarded 

 in two aspects. In the first place he was a new phenomenon 

 in his time. His age was one of an artificial character, when 

 little real interest was felt in natural objects. White had to 

 strike out a line for himself ; there were no field-naturalists' 

 clubs in those days to make pleasant the paths of natural 

 history to the hesitating beginner, by a large infusion of the 

 picnic element. On the contrary, men who devoted them- 



