NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 5 fE5) 
the Isle of Ely,”* and we know besides that in the month of June 
in that year he “was visiting for a week together at Spalding ;” + 
but, alas! the only information he gives us on the fauna of the 
Fens is the bare statement that “there are supposed to be two 
sorts of eels in the island of Ely.” { 
By far the best picture of the Fens known to us is that drawn 
by White’s correspondent, Pennant, whose labours it is now-a-days 
rather the fashion to depreciate. He visited Lincolnshire at least 
three times :—first in May, 1768, when he met Mr. (afterwards Sir 
Joseph) Banks at Revesby Abbey, the latter’s seat in that county, 
and “made many observations on the zoology of the country ;”§ 
secondly, from the 27th to the 29th of June, 1769, when he rode 
from Chesterfield by Dunham Ferry and the Foss Dyke to Lincoln, 
whence he visited Spalding, and, passing near Swinesland Abbey, 
returned to Lincoln, proceeding northward by Glanford Bridge 
to the Humber ;|| and thirdly, in July, 1776, when he went from 
Lincoln by Horncastle, Tattershall, Boston, Crowland and Castor 
to Peterborough.{/ In his account of the second of these visits 
occurs a description, which, being unknown probably to most of 
our readers, and not mentioned by the authors of ‘ The Fenland,’ 
we take the liberty of reproducing. It probably includes the 
experience of both his earlier visits :— 
“The fen called the West Fen, is the place where the Ruffs and Reeves 
resort to in the greatest numbers; and many other sorts of water-fowl, 
which do not require the shelter of reeds or rushes, migrate here to breed ; 
for this fen is very bare, having been imperfectly drained by narrow canals, 
which intersect it for great numbers of miles. These the inhabitants 
navigate in most diminutive shallow boats; they are, in fact, the roads of 
the country. 
“The Hast Fen is quite in a state of nature, and gives a specimen of 
the country before the introduction of drainage: it is a vast tract of morass, 
intermixed with numbers of lakes*** from half a mile to two or three miles 
* The circumstance which induced this statement is also mentioned in his 
* Antiquities,’ Letter v. 
+ Letter xxiii. to Pennant. + Letter xl. to Pennant. 
§ ‘Literary Life, p. 8. Among these observations must have been those on the 
heronry at Cressi, which so excited” White’s curiosity, and on the supposed new 
Locustella, as it was called in those days, the Sedge Warbler of modern times, the 
recognition of which is due to White and Pennant jointly. 
|| ‘ Tour in Scotland,’ Ed. 5, i. pp. 7—15. q ‘Literary Life,’ p. 24. 
** Our authors give (p. 150) a list of these lakes and their names from Dugdale. 
