232 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



'Durham Household Book,' 1530-34, Mr. Harting proposes to 

 change the name of Dunlin to Dunling. The weights of many 

 birds are also given, information not always easily procurable. 

 Our own idea is to have this work interleaved and bound up in 

 two volumes, and used not only as a reference book for British 

 birds — which it undoubtedly is — but to make it an even greater 

 storehouse by the addition of our gleanings and memoranda. A 

 well annotated volume is always a compliment to the book itself. 

 The coloured illustrations, reproduced from original drawings 

 by the late Prof. Schlegel, represent the heads of two hundred 

 and sixtj'-two species (male and female), and will no doubt prove 

 a boon to many observers and incipient ornithologists. 



The Life and Letters of Gilbert White ofSelborne. By his Great- 

 grand-nephew, Rashleigh Holt-White. John Murray. 



It is a coincidence that two English classics — and yet how 

 diverse ! — appeared almost simultaneously : we allude to the 

 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,' and the 'Natural 

 History of Selborne.' The writer of this interesting book has 

 avoided the mention of this literary twinship. White was born 

 in 1730, and died in 1793; Gibbon's birth took place in 1737, 

 and his death in 1794. The ' Natural History of Selborne ' was 

 published in 1788, the same year as Gibbon's concluding volumes 

 were given to the world. With the almost certainty that both 

 books will last with the language, and that they have nothing in 

 common, the parallel may be considered closed. 



We have had so many editions of the work, that the life of 

 its writer was almost a demand of letters. These two volumes 

 lift much of the veil, and probably tell us all we shall ever know 

 on the subject. We can see that Gilbert White was a genius in 

 the sense of the not universally accepted definition, that that 

 much-used word is the equivalent of the art of taking pains. 

 He was an ardent naturalist — -born to that vocation — a man 

 of thrift, an old-time clergyman of the Established Church, a 

 courteous gentleman, and one who certainly did not excel in the 

 gentle art of making enemies. Besides this, he ever studied the 

 method of dignified composition, a circumstance, almost as much 

 as its natural history, which has rendered his book a classic. 



