\3g 
PREFACE. 
Messrs. Macmillan having requested me to edit White's 
" Selborne," I accepted the task, feeling assured that the hand- 
some Edition of the works of the founder and pioneer of 
English Practical Natural History now presented to the public 
would be the means of attracting many of the present genera- 
tion — both young and old — to the observation of the living 
works of the great Creator, and would help to counteract the 
growth of doubt, infidelity, and atheism, which — though regarded 
at their real worth by a reasoning public — must become bitter 
weeds in future, of no assistance to science, and sure promoters 
of a dangerous materialism. 
Gilbert White's writings are coloured throughout with that 
right tone of feeling which recognises the work of a great 
Creator in everything, both large and small. Gilbert White 
may, in fact, be said to have planted the acorn which, forty 
years after his death, grew into a great oak in the form of the 
Bridgewater Treatises ^ on the " ^obtr, lEisbom, auir ^ooDne?^ of 
(Hob-, as mauif^st^D in Wi% Citalioir." 
^ I beg to recommend the readers of White to peruse these Bridgewater 
Treatises, especially Kirby on the History, Habits and Instinct of Animals ; 
Dr. Koget on Animal and Vegetable Physiology ; Sir Charles Bell on the 
Hand, and the Kev. Dr. Backland on Geology and Mineralogy. 
