xvi PREFACE. 



respondence with the relatives just enumerated, from his 

 occasional visits to most of them, and from the return of 

 those visits to himself, (for his house, although that of a 

 bachelor, was always open to his family and friends,) he 

 must, in his latter years, have felt this want much less 

 sensibly than at the period when it was noted as an apology 

 for the slender progress which he then conceived himself 

 to have made in the science. Few men have had the good 

 fortune to possess so many near connexions engaged in 

 pursuits so congenial with their own. 



THOMAS PENNANT, the correspondent for many years of Gil- 

 bert White and the esteemed friend to whom the first series 

 of his Letters on the Natural History of his native place were 

 addressed, was among the most active of the scientific and 

 literary characters of his day. At the commencement of 

 his correspondence with White, he was busily engaged in 

 the preparation of the octavo edition of his British Zoology: 

 the first edition of that work had preceded it but a few 

 years ; and it was quickly followed by others ; and by other 

 works on zoology, and on antiquities, and by tours, topo- 

 graphies, and other productions ; all of which were deser- 

 vedly popular. For more than forty years his pen was 

 never idle. Industrious himself, he was the cause also of 

 industry in others ; and the enumeration which he gives of 

 the services he did to the professors of the art of engraving 

 by the multitude of plates executed by them for his several 

 works, while it furnishes a list of the principal of his pro- 

 ductions, will also afford some idea of the extent and variety 

 of his labours. 



British Zoology, folio . . . .132 

 British Zoology, octavo or quarto . . 284 



History of Quadrupeds .... 54 

 Tour in Scotland, the three volumes . 134 



Journey to London .... 23 

 Tour in Wales, two volumes . .53 



Moses Griffiths' Supplemental Plates . 10 

 Some Account of London, second edition . 15 



