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spondence of Gilbert White, and we have here a long series of letters 
written by him to various members of his family and to the naturalists with 
whom he corresponded, many of whose replies are also printed. These 
letters are of great interest from several points of view. Many amusing 
little revelations of social conditions occur in them from time to time ; some 
of them worthily supplement the text of the u Natural History of Selborne,” 
among which we may specially note the correspondence, chiefly on trees 
and arboriculture, with Robert Marsham, of Stratton Strawless, in Norfolk 
(an F.R.S. who writes in the first person singular with a little “ i ”) ; and 
above all they let us further into the character of White himself, show- 
ing more and more clearly the amiable, genial character of the man, his 
quiet and gentle humour, his love of all knowledge, and his readiness to 
pour out for the benefit of others whatever stores he had himself accumu- 
lated. 
From a zoological point of view we may indicate as particularly inte- 
resting the letters to his brother, the Rev. John White, chiefly relating to a 
fauna of Gibraltar, which the latter was engaged in preparing from collec- 
tions and observations made by him while officiating as a chaplain in that 
fortress. The death of John White, before the difficulties of coming to 
terms with a bookseller had been surmounted, unfortunately prevented the 
publication of this book ; but the correspondence between the two Whites, 
and between John White and Linnaeus, will be found most 'interesting by 
those naturalists who have time to spare for the history of biological studies. 
We have in them a faithful reflex of the kind of investigations which only 
a hundred years ago occupied the attention of our predecessors ; we find the 
system of the great Swedish naturalist represented as actually struggling to 
get a footing in England, where some years later it was so firmly established 
that a late distinguished naturalist is said to have been excluded from a 
learned Society because he had advocated the adoption of the Natural 
System in Botany, and we have heard of an entomologist who destroyed all 
specimens which, as he said, were “ not in Linnaeus ; ” and the references to 
books and discussions of their contents have a strangely antiquated tone 
about them to our modern ears. 
The correspondence is followed by a letter “ On the Sense of Hearing in 
Fishes,” which was evidently intended to have formed part of the series 
constituting the “ Natural History ; ” and this again by a sermon giving us a 
sample of White’s mode of preaching, and, as the editor says, 11 of the 
ordinary character of the best village sermons of the period,” a plain and 
simple discourse, directed chiefly to the improvement of the moral condition 
of the hearers. 
After the sermon comes one of the most amusing items in this volume, 
namely a literal reprint of an account of expenses incurred by Gilbert 
White, for about two years, during part of which he held the office of 
Proctor in the University of Oxford. Mr. Bell says of it that it has always 
struck him “ as exhibiting in its simplicity that combination of genial 
kindliness and generous hospitality with habitual prudence, punctilious for- 
mality, and methodical habits which was so characteristic of the whole of 
his after-life. As an indication of some phases of ordinary college life of 
the time, it is not without some amusing interest.” The first thing that 
