Whites Selborne. 223 



seen more than one or two pairs anywhere in the neighbourhood this spring. — Henri/ 

 Douhleday ; Epping, May, 1843. 



Note on the KestriL The commencement of the nest of a kestril {Falco tinnunculus) 

 having been noticed near Oxford, a gin-trap was set in it, and five male birds were ta- 

 ken on successive days, without the occurrence of a female. The last of the number 

 was a young bird of the year, in complete female plumage. I may mention that I 

 have noticed a difference in the changes of plumage in this bird ; the plumage of a// 

 the young males is, I believe, identical with that of the female during the first year — 

 but in some the narrow black bars on the tail remain through the second year, though 

 the ground colour has changed to grey ; while in others the black bars disappear alto- 

 gether, except the broad one near the tip, with the first change of plumage ; and the 

 male colouring is at once complete. — F. Holme ; Oxford, May 15, 1843. 



Note on the occurrence of the Eared Grebe at Oxford. A fine male specimen of 

 the eared grebe {Podiceps auritus), in full nuptial plumage, was shot in Port Meadow, 

 close to Oxford, about a month since. — Id. May 31, 1843. 



Notice of White''s Selborne.^ 



White's Selborne ! There is a charm about the very name ! It is 

 intertwined with our earliest knowledge of Natural History ; it calls 

 lip the most pleasant ideas of birds, and their nests, and their migra- 

 tions : and wherefore is it that this unassuming name, this unpretend- 

 ing volume, has such a charm ? Why is each of its readers ready to 

 say of himself, — " And I also am a naturalist " ? Is it not that the 

 author has stripped his subject of all the pedantry in which others 

 had invested it ? Well might Linnaeus say, ^' verbositas prcesentis s(b- 

 culi calamitas artis ; " and if true then, how much more true now I 

 It is this verbosity — this "^'o.r et prceterea nihiV* — that disgusts an 

 enquirer, and leads him to look on Natural History as a science of 

 words rather than of things. Then again, the constant appeal to the 

 dead languages, when our own affords words and phrases adapted to 

 harmonious and expressive description, is a constant stumbling-block 

 to the learner. White, though a peculiarly elegant scholar, a man 

 whose memory was stored and overflowing with classic lore, writes 

 the most pure, unpretending, and graceful English that ever subserv- 

 ed the purpose of innocent instruction. 



White's attention was ever on the alert to observe : nothing seems 

 to escape him. The arrival and departure of birds, the commence- 



* The Natural History of Selborne. By the late Rev. Gilbert White, M.A. 

 A new edition, with Notes by the Rev. Leonard Jenyns, M.A., F.L.S., &c. London : 

 Van Voorst. 1843. 



