XV 111 
PREFACE. 
correspondent of an observer like Gilbert White. The 
legal studies wMcli lie had originally cultivated as a pro- 
fessional duty^ and in which he had been so successful as to 
have merited the office of recorder of Bristol,, and to have 
become subsequently a Welsh judge^ were eventually laid 
aside by him, although not until after they had fostered in 
him an attachment to antiquarian pursuits which he retained 
through life so strongly as to entitle him to be distinguished 
among his fellow-students in that department of knowledge 
as a vice-president of the Society of Antiquaries. To the 
" Transactions of that body he was a frequent contributor. 
He also made numerous communications to the Koyal 
Society, which were printed in the ^' Philosophical Trans- 
actions.''^ Many of them were afterwards republished by 
himself in a separate form, under the title of " Miscellanies ; " 
a work alluded to with satisfaction by our historian in his 
Letter LI. In his essays Barrington availed himself freely 
of the information imparted to him by White, whose autho- 
rity he repeatedly quotes, and whose merits as a well 
read, ingenious, and observant naturalist he is ever ready 
to acknowledge. 
A large proportion of the essays in the Miscellanies 
are on subjects of natural history; and in many of them 
Daines Barrington was the advocate of views directly opposed 
to those of our author^s other correspondent. Pennant. 
Thus, for instance, while Pennant felt a full conviction as 
to the migration of many birds, Barrington was most 
sceptical on the subject; and it is scarcely to be doubted 
that his letters to Gilbert White tended to keep alive and 
to increase the suspicions which the historian of Selborne 
always entertained that the little creatures whose presenoe 
delighted him during the summer, were still at hand, though 
hidden from him, in the winter. Another point on which 
his two correspondents disagreed was as to the authority 
which they attributed to Pay and to Linnaeus ; and White 
was evidently quite aware of the difference of their feelings 
on this subject, humouring them so far as to accommo- 
date himself to the wishes of each when addressing him in 
particular. When sending to Pennant, in his Letter XVI., 
