202 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



any other of his countrymen to awaken a taste for Natural 

 History and to encourage its pursuit. His letters on the Natural 

 History and Antiquities of Selborne, addressed in the first 

 instance to his friends Thomas Pennant and Daines Barrington, 

 were collected in book form and printed in quarto in 1789 — the 

 sole edition which the author lived to see published, though very 

 many have been issued since his death. Could he have foreseen 

 the favour with which his book was received, he would never 

 have preserved the diffident lines which he penned on the eve of 

 its publication. Its great charm lies in its unaffected style, and 

 the amount of accurate and instructive information which is 

 conveyed in simple language ; while it has the further merit of 

 being original in design ; not a compilation founded upon the 

 researches of others, like so many books on Natural History 

 which have preceded and followed it ; but the clearly expressed 

 results of his own personal observation within the narrow limits 

 of a district which included few parishes beyond his own. 



Born at Selborne on the 18th July, 1720, Gilbert White was 

 the eldest son of John White, of that place, and grandson of the 

 Kev. Gilbert White, Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, who 

 was Vicar of the parish. His mother, Anne Holt, was a daughter 

 of Thomas Holt, of Petersfield, who was likewise educated at 

 Magdalen College, Oxford, and being preferred to the Rectory of 

 Streatham, died there in 1710. 



The marriage of Gilbert White's parents was solemnized at 

 the parish church of Rogate, Sussex, on the 29th Sept., 1719. 

 Though he himself was born, as stated, at Selborne on the 18th 

 July following, it would seem that the family temporarily quitted 

 that place, for it is on record that two sons, and two daughters 

 who died in infancy, were born at Compton, near Guildford, while 

 the sixth son Francis was born at Harting, Sussex, in March, 

 1729, after which they returned to Selborne, where the youngest 

 two children, Anne and Henry, were born, the former in 1731, the 

 latter in 1733. From this time, when Gilbert White was about 

 thirteen years of age, they continued to reside in the old house, 

 where both his mother and father died, the former in December, 

 1739, at the age of forty-six, the latter in October, 1758, at the 

 age of seventy-one. 



Concerning his boyhood no information exists beyond the 

 fact mentioned by his nephew in a sketch prefixed to the second 



