196 
The Irish Naturalist. 
August, 1906. 
Not only in the above instance, but throughout this book, the total 
absence of foot-notes, even where they are absolutely necessary to render 
a detached paragraph intelligible, or to indicate in what part of the book 
its context will be found, is a grave blemish. One extract (p. 181) 
abruptly concludes with the sentence : "I have discovered this summer 
three species of birds with us, which writers mention as only to be seen 
in the northern counties." One has to turn to one of the ordinary editions 
of White's " Selborne." and there to look up the letter (20 to Pennant) 
from which this extract was taken, to discover what the three birds were ; 
though it would have been eas}- for Mr. Mosley to avert this absurditj* by 
appending a short foot-note— " vSee under Ring-Ousel, Sandpiper, and 
Shrike." 
A further mischief resulting from the absence of foot-notes is that the 
headlines placed over some of the paragraphs are unnecessarily dogmatic, 
and even misleading. For example, under "Lesser Whitethroat" the 
editor sets two paragraphs which obviously cannot both refer to that 
species. One is the description in letter 40 to Pennant of the notes and 
habits of the bird which White himself called the Whitethroat, and which 
he knew at the time his correspondence with that naturalist opened as a 
regular summer visitant to Selborne. The other, in a much later letter 
(LVII. to Barrington), speaks of " a rare, and, I think, a new little bird," 
frequenting White's garden, which he described .is "much resembling 
the Whitethroat," but having a more silvery breast and different habit. 
It is true that each of these passages, look.ed at separately, has been con- 
jecturally referred by good naturalists to the Lesser Whitethroat ; but it 
is almost an insult to White's memory to put them together and to say — 
without even the suggestion of a doubt — that they both relate to that 
species. One or the other conjecture must be wrong, and both may be. 
The present reviewer sees no reason at all for doubting that by the " White- 
throat" White meant the Common Whitethroat, and nothing else. 
Otherwise, that observant naturalist, the first discoverer in England of 
the Noctule and of the Harvest Mouse, entirely overlooked one of the 
commonest and most generally known of the British warblers ; and it 
would take a much stronger reason than Mr. Harting has adduced in his 
edition of Selborne for the conjecture that the Lesser Whitethroat was 
meant, to convince us that any such error was possible. 
By the way, although White in his letters refers at least twice to Ireland, 
we do not find the name of this country in Mr. Mosley's index. The 
references will be found under " Lizards" and "Miscellany." 
C. B. M 
