Introduction xi 



blustering weather the chimney smokes a little till the shaft 

 becomes hot. The chief fault that I find is the strong echo, 

 which, when many people are talking, makes confusion to my 

 poor dull ears." It is as difficult to write a life of White as it is 

 to write a life of Shakespeare, and for the same reason that 

 we know so little of either man save through his works. 

 White's Selborne seems to have originated in a letter — very 

 probably the tenth of the series as printed — which was 

 addressed to Thomas Pennant, a naturalist who had written 

 a "British Zoology." To this letter a number of others 

 succeeded, written, one must conclude, without any idea that 

 they would ever be published. Daines Harrington, another 

 of his correspondents, seems to have put the idea that the 

 letters should at some time be made public, into White's head, 

 hence the addition of the earlier letters, composed with a view 

 of giving a general account of the district treated of in the 

 correspondence. The letters are here for all to read, and no 

 special account of them need or will be given, but attention 

 may be called to two points before an attempt is made to 

 indicate White's peculiar position as a naturalist. In the last 

 letter of his Natural History of Selborne, White says, " When 

 I first took the present work in hand, I proposed to have 

 added an Annus Historico-Naturalis, or the Natural History 

 of the Twelve Months of the Year, which would have comprised 

 many incidents and occurrences that have fallen into my way 

 to be mentioned in my series of letters ; — but as Mr. Aikin, 

 of Warrington, has lately published something of this sort, 

 and as the length of my correspondence has sufficiently put 

 your patience to the test, I shall here take a respectful 

 leave of you and natural history together." After White's 

 death, by a curious piece of good fortune, the papers in 

 question fell into the hands of this very Dr. Aikin, who pub- 

 lished them, together with a similar calendar composed by a 

 gentleman of the name of Markwick. What an interest it 

 would add to the life of country children, not to speak of 

 country dwellers of riper age, if they took upon themselves 

 the composing of calendars of this kind for their own district 

 and from their own observation. I have myself just ex- 

 perienced the interest which such notes may have, as years 



