THE REV. JOHN WHITE. 13 



of Mrs. Hale's this morning ; and the whooping cough rather 

 gets worse than better. Poor Nanny Wood's cough is very 

 bad ; and she is very weak and mends very slowly. Mr. 

 Knight of Street House is dead. With respects to my sister 

 I remain, 



Your affectionate and obliged brother, 



GIL. WHITE. 



LETTER V. 



Selborne, Aug. 2, 1773. 



Dear Brother, 



I find you still, as well as when you resided on the other 

 side of the Pyrenean mountains, my most steady and com- 

 municative correspondent ; and therefore it will be my own 

 fault if our epistolary intercourse should languish. 



Jack * behaves very well and is very obliging, and, in his 

 readiness to assist and put an helping hand, often puts me in 

 mind of a gentlewoman that is very nearly related to himf. 

 Mr. and Mrs. Etty take a great deal of notice of him, and 

 have him to dine every Sunday |. 



No doubt your wren that you saw was the shivering wren. 

 So Mr. Lever does not know the grasshopper lark ; that is 

 plain : but as it has done whispering there will be no procu- 

 ring one till next season. He seems also to be unacquainted 

 with the laughing sort. If you were to recollect, you would 

 call to mind that my letters to Mr. Pennant are full of accounts 

 of the sedge-bird. It was by my means that that bird, when 

 omitted totally in the Zool. was inserted in the Appendix. 

 Mr. P. had seen it in Lincolnshire, but did not at all know 

 what to make of it, nor how to ascertain it. He was misled 



* [Now aged 15.— T. B.] 



t [Alluding to Jack's mother, who, after her husband's death, resided 

 with Gilbert White. See Memoir.— T. B.] 



\ [Gilbert White, being at this time curate of Faringdon, of course 

 did not dine at Selborne on Sundays. The Rev. Andrew Etty was vicar 

 of Selborne at that time. — T. B.] 



