66 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
lands had been transmitted to him through his great uncle Oliver Whitby, 
nephew to Sir Edward Ford. Thus the little estate in Hast Harting was 
part of the family property of Gilbert White, and showed that he was 
kinsman to the great squires of Kast and West Harting, as the Carylls and 
Fords had intermarried. 
« An interesting entry in his Account Book marks not only that he was 
intimate with the clergy here, but that in all probability he knew Harting 
at a very early period of his life :— 
«+ Beb. 2,1754.* Gave Dr. Durnford’s servant at Harting, 3s; Mrs. 
Newlin’s maid 3s.’ He was here evidently staying two nights in Harting ; 
and for one of these resided at the house of the widow of honest old parson 
John Newlin. It is pretty certain, therefore, that he must have known old 
Mr. Newlin himself, who lived at Harting from the commencement of his 
incumbency as Vicar, 1731, to the time of bis death, 1738. We may 
assume further, that, no doubt in consequence of his family connections, 
Gilbert White was quite at home in Harting from an early period of his 
life, and that his facts relating to the South Downs were collected here. 
The following draft of a codicil to the will of Gilbert White is preserved in 
his own handwriting :— 
«* Whereas I, the Rev? Gilbert White, of Selborne, in the County of 
South’ton, Clerk, have duly made and executed my last Will and Testament 
in writing, bearing date the second day of November last, and whereas since 
executing my said Will I-have suffered a recovery of my estate at East 
Harting, in the county of Sussex, now I do hereby give and devise unto my 
all that, my Messuage, Farm Lands, Tenéments and Hereditaments, 
with the appurtenances situate and being in the Parish of East Harting, 
otherwise Harting, in the county of Sussex, called or known by the several 
names of Deane’s, Boyes’, Woodhouse and Maxwell’s or by whatsoever other 
name or names the same or any part thereof is called or known. ‘To hold 
unto him my said his Heirs and assigns for ever. And I do declare 
this to be a codicil to my said Will. Dated the — day of January, 1792.” 
Considering the many visits which Gilbert White must have paid 
to his property at Harting, it is somewhat singular that he has 
never mentioned it even by name in his ‘ Natural History of Sel- 
borne.’ Itis true that in writing an account of one parish he might 
have deemed it hardly relevant to record observations made in 
another, and that not an adjacent one, but at the same time one 
would almost have expected to find in his Letters some allusion to 
the rural scenery or the natural productions of a locality not far 
* In Mr. Bell’s recently published edition of White s ‘ Selborne’ a transcript from 
one of Gilbert White’s account-books is given, wherein this entry appears, under 
date Feb. 2, 1755 (vol. ii., p. 346). 
