GILBERT white's BOOK 173 



wandered to some distant field. The motives that 

 impel him to undertake these rambles seem to be of 

 the amorous kind; his fancy then becomes intent 

 on sexual attachments, which transport him beyond 

 his usual gravity and induce him to forget for a 

 time his ordinary solemn deportment.'' 



Not less graphic and interesting is his account of 

 the idiot boy who had a passion for bees and honey, 

 — was, in fact, a veritable bee-eater, seeking the 

 bees in the field and about the hives, and, as he ran 

 about, making a humming noise with his lips that 

 resembled the buzzing of bees. Nothing, in fact, 

 escaped White's attention, and his interest in things 

 is so sane and natural, and at the same time so 

 lively, that his pages never become obsolete. 



The American reader of his book will hardly fail 

 to give many of his notes and observations an appli- 

 cation at home, and see wherein our own familiar 

 natural history agrees with or differs from that of 

 the mother country. The toad appears to be a 

 common reptile in England, yet White confessed 

 his ignorance of its manner of propagation, — 

 whether it laid eggs or brought forth its young 

 alive, — and could get no light from the authorities 

 of his time upon the subject. But the fact with 

 regard to frogs, he said, was notorious to everybody. 

 With us, the fact with regard to toads is just as 

 obvious. Their spawning habits may be noticed in 

 the spring in every marsh and roadside pool, the 

 large, sedate, grandmotherly female toad bearing the 

 pert, dapper little male, looking like her ten-year- 



