viii Gilbert White of Sellorne 2 1 7 



which I had disturbed, ran and thrust their heads 

 into the first patch of hrown grass they could find, so 

 White more than a century ago noticed that the 

 young of the Stone-curlew skulk among the stones 

 of some flinty field, " which are their best security, 

 for their feathers are so exactly of the colour of our 

 gray -spotted flints, that the most exact observer, 

 unless he catches the eye of the young bird, may 

 be eluded." 



One unconsciously strays back to birds in talking 

 of White ; but his notes range over the whole field of 

 the animal and vegetable life of his district. We all 

 remember the tortoise at Eingmer, which after many 

 years' acquaintance became his guest and friend at 

 Selborne ; the field -crickets at the "Short Lithe" 

 behind the village, which eluded his efforts to 

 domesticate them in his garden; the little harvest- 

 mouse which he was the first to describe, and whose 

 "procreant cradle" was rolled across his table — 

 perhaps the very table that now stands in the 

 Common room of Oriel College — without discom- 

 posing the eight naked and blind little inmates. 

 Trees, too, were the objects of his particular affec- 

 tion, though he for the most part left botany to the 

 specialist. Insects he evidently studied with great 

 care ; and here again he makes a suggestion which 

 has only of late been seriously taken up, influenced 

 by a conviction, of which several proofs may be 



