GILBERT WHITE AND HIS SUSSEX CONNECTIONS. 443 



White has references to Goodwood, Midhurst, Iping, Uppark, 

 Harting, and Funtington. 



Three days of eight hours — twenty-four hours in all— were 

 all that were available for the study of twenty-five years' diaries 

 at the British Museum, that is one hour for each year, to study, 

 compare, and transcribe notes which sometimes, as in the time of 

 his deafness (Sept. 13th, 1774), were very voluminous. It will be 

 pardonable, therefore, if there are some omissions in the evidence 

 submitted. 



The first volume has the following entry : — " 1768, Sept. 30 : 

 Stares (Starlings), flock at Chilgrove. Stone Curlew does not flock 

 yet." It will be remembered that the information about Stone Cur- 

 lews was supplied by Mr. G. Woods, of Chilgrove. Almost to a day 

 a similar entry occurs the following year, 1768, Oct. 1st: "Har- 

 vest pretty nearly finished this evening ; some wheat out at Harting 

 [as he was returning from Chilgrove to Selborne] ; roads much 

 dryed." 1769 : " Sept. 12 : Wheatears (CEnanthe) still caught 

 on East Sussex Downs. Sept. 18th : Bustards on the downs, 

 Eingmer. G. W. stayed at Ringmer till 30th September." 



Elsewhere in this diary White says that he saw Bustards, 

 Feb. 13th, 1770, on Salisbury Plain, and that when seen on the 

 downs they resemble Fallow Deer at a distance. " 1770 : Chil- 

 grove, Oct. 2, 3, 4. Oct. 2 : Ring Ouzel on Harting Hill." No 

 doubt on the down near Two Beech Gate, and on the road to 

 Chilgrove. "Oct. 3 : Ring Ouzels again on the downs eastward." 

 These are part of the observations on the Ring Ouzel which he 

 claimed to have discovered as a summer migrant, and which he 

 says were cantoned all along the downs and coast of Sussex, 

 as specially observed by him in the autumn of J 770 (Letter 

 xxxviii.). Ringmer, at Mrs. Snooke's house a fortnight, Oct. 5th 

 — 19th. First observations on Crossbills, amongst Mrs. Snooke's 

 Scotch pines. Chilgrove again, Oct. 19th, 20th: "Vast floods 

 on the Sussex rivers. They call their meads by the river-side 

 * brooks' in Sussex." 



" 1771, April 1. Mr. Woods, of Chilgrove, had, on this day, 

 twenty-seven acres of spring corn wheat not then sprouted out 

 of the ground; and yet he had a good crop from those fields, not 

 less than four quarts to the acre." July 22nd — 27th, Gilbert 

 White visits Funtington, where he finds "Peas cut; turnips 

 failing and resown." Oct. 30th, 31st, Chilgrove. "Curlews (i.e. 



2 m 2 



