198 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



alluding to the purely zoological student, to whom, as we have 

 said, the series of volumes is indispensable as a course of study, 

 but feel that to very many readers of * The Zoologist ' this 

 ' Treatise ' will be of encyclopsediacal value, where many bio- 

 logical difficulties may be solved, and it will in fact prove a 

 frequently consulted zoological lexicon. 



The Natural History of Selbome. By the Eev. Gilbert White, 

 M.A. Ke-arranged, and Classified under Subjects, by 

 Charles Mosley. Elliot Stock. 



To have given the world a classic, and to have published it 

 in the seventieth year of his life, has been the lot of few natura- 

 lists, and in the present demand by publishers for zoological mat- 

 ter, this will in the future be a still more unlikely circumstance. 

 Gilbert White has had many disciples and imitators ; a charm- 

 ing series of volumes are now found on the shelves of most 

 naturalists' libraries — books written often by better equipped 

 observers, but still lacking the vitality of this literary gem, which 

 will probably survive them all. What is the secret of this ever 

 vernal composition ? It certainly owes much to its dignified 

 simplicity in diction, and to its patient method of observation, 

 qualities pre-eminently found in the greater classic which ap- 

 peared seventy years afterwards — ' The Origin of Species,' by 

 Charles Darwin. Sermons are sometimes somewhat dull to hear 

 or read, but who would not like to have some familiarity with 

 the addresses given by this naturalist vicar to his rural congre- 

 gation ? There must have been much natural theology. 



Nearly one hundred editions of the ' Natural History of 

 Selborne ' have been already published, some of which have been 

 little read, and the existence of others only known to librarians 

 and collectors ; to edit White has always been the pious wish of 

 a sometimes weak disciple. This edition strikes new ground, 

 and serves a useful purpose ; it gives a summary of White's 

 observations arranged under subjects and species, so that we 

 may at once, by the aid of this condensation, know all the writer 

 had to say on each animal and plant he referred to in many 

 letters. It is thus a book for the student, but the original 

 arrangement will still be the delight of most naturalists and 

 literary readers. Mr. Mosley has perhaps done no inconsider- 



