17 [Vol. xxxiii. 



History of Selborne/ vol. i. p. xii). But the charge of in- 

 gratitude does not seem well founded ; at the time when 

 Pennant wrote such acknowledgement was rare, and Pennant 

 was, moreover, in his own estimation and that of his con- 

 temporaries, by far the more eminent naturalist of the two, 

 while, in fact, in the preface to the octavo edition Pennant 

 does ' generally but fully acknowledge White's services ' (cf. 

 p. xiii. Preface and p. 498 Appendix ' British Zoology/ 

 1768). 



The Hon. Daines Barrington (1727-1800), to whom the 

 other letters in the ' Natural History ' were addressed, 

 was a son of John Sbute, first Viscount Barrington. White 

 made Barrington' s acquaintance in May 1769, when they 

 met in London, the introduction being probably due to 

 Pennant ; but Barrington had already forwarded to Gilbert 

 White a copy of his ' Naturalist Journal ' as before men- 

 tioned. In an unpublished passage of Letter XIII. to 

 Pennant, January 22, 1768, White writes: 'your friend 

 Mr. Barrington (to whom I am an entire stranger) has been 

 so obliging as to make me a present of one of his Naturalist's 

 Journals, which I shall hope to fill in the course of the 

 year/ Barrington lias been described as ' a queer compound 

 of lawyer, antiquary, and naturalist/ but we owe to him a 

 considerable debt, as not only was he largely instrumental 

 in persuading Gilbert White to publish the f Natural 

 History of Selborne' (cf. Bell, vol. i. pp. xlviii & 1), but it 

 was at Barrington's suggestion that White wrote his 

 'Monograpby of the Swallow Genus/ and it was through 

 Barrington's influence that these papers were read before 

 the Royal Society, he being a Fellow of that Institution. 

 The late Professor Newton terms them ' those memorable 

 monographs, almost the earliest of their kind in zoological 

 literature.' They were written in 1774-5 and were printed 

 by the Royal Society in the ' Philosophical Transactions/ 

 vol. 69, p. 258, but with many inaccuracies > as White 

 complains (cf. Bell, vol. ii. p. 115). These papers were 

 afterwards embodied in the letters to Barrington in the 

 ' Natural History.' 



