258 CORRESPONDENCE OF GILBERT WHITE 



to wish you many more years of health, to enjoy the honest 

 pleasure resulting from your instructing mankind. 



I remain, with great esteem, dear Sir, your obedient 



& obliged servant, 



R: MARSHAM. 



P.S. I think you was poorly paid in 100 shillings for 100 

 feet of good Elm. The Beeches you mention (tho' hollow) of 

 30 feet round, are above ten feet larger than i have ever seen. 

 — I had last week an account that there is now in Stonleigh 

 Park* (amongst abundance of fine Oaks) an Oak 23 F. 11 

 Inches round at 5 feet. The Tree is sound & in health. 



[Franked by «W. Fellowes;" endorsed by White, "M r Marsham."] 



LETTER V. 



WHITE TO MARSHAM. 



Selborne: Jan. 18th. 1791. 



Dear Sir, 

 As your long silence gave me some uneasiness lest it should 

 have been occasioned by indisposition ; so the sight of your 

 last obliging letter afforded me much satisfaction in pro- 

 portion. 



I was not a little pleased to find that your friend Lord 

 Suffield corroborated the account of the Cuckoo given by Mr. 

 Jennor, whose relation of the proceedings of that peculiar bird 

 is very curious, new, & extraordinary. — It does not appear 

 from y r letter that you endeavoured to revive the Swallow, 

 which fell down before y r parlor-window. — I have not' yet 

 done with trees, & shall therefore add, that my tall 74 f. beech 

 measures 6 feet in the girth at two feet above the ground. 

 Beeches seem to me to thrive best on stoney, or chalkey cliffs, 

 where there seems to be little or no soil. Thus about a mile 



* [Stoneleigh near Kenilworth, now the seat of Lord Leigh. — A. N.] 



