PUBLISHERS' PEEFACE TO THE 

 FOUETH EDITION. 



INGE the publication of our first edition of 

 this work, in the autumn of 1875, there has 

 appeared in the "Transactions of the Norfolk 

 and Norwich Naturalists' Society " a series 

 often recently discovered letters from Gilbert 

 White to Robert Marsham, with the corresponding replies. 

 The extreme interest which attaches to these new letters, 

 and the fact of their having been edited for the Society by 

 Mr. Harting has enabled us to reprint them in an appendix 

 to our present edition, and thus lay before the reader in 

 one volume all that has hitherto come to light from the pen 

 of the historian of Selborne. 



Those who desire to possess Marsham's replies to these 

 letters, must be referred to the volume of the Society's 

 " Transactions " for 1875-76, in which the entire corre- 

 spondence is published. 



