THOMAS BARKER’S NOTE-BOOKS. 
203 
In the spring both he and his mate disappeared. I suppose 
they were too busy building their nest to have time for such 
trifles as nuts, and I have not seen the hen since, though my old 
friend, the cock bird, suddenly appeared one day not long ago, 
when I was sitting in the garden. He perched on an apple tree, 
uttering his usual plaintive note, evidently to attract my atten- 
tion, for he waited whilst I went into the house to fetch some 
nuts, and when I returned and placed them on the ground near 
me, he descended and carried off about a dozen kernels ; whether 
he fed his mate or his young ones with them I do not know, but 
he could not possibly have eaten them all himself in so short a 
time. Since then he has again disappeared, but I daresay as 
soon as he has finished the work of rearing his young he will 
once more remember that nuts are sweet. 
B. Downing. 
Sutton Waldron Rectory, 
Blandford, Dorset. 
THOMAS BARKER’S NOTE-BOOKS. 
search. 
HOMAS BARKER, Gilbert White’s brother-in-law, 
was a kindred spirit to the great naturalist, and a man 
of considerable powers of observation, some of his ex- 
periments seeming to anticipate later methods of re- 
He was born in 1722, his father being Samuel Barker, 
of Lyndon Hall, Rutlandshire, and his mother, Sarah Whiston, 
a daughter of the learned translator of Josephus. Being the eldest 
son, he succeeded his father at Lyndon, and resided there most 
of his life. He had only one son, Samuel, and the family is now' 
extinct in the male line. Two of his note-books and two of his 
mother’s are in the possession of my father, the Rev. F. Gilbert 
White, of Lensdon Vicarage, and I propose to give some short 
account of them. 
Many of Thomas Barker’s notes formed the groundw'ork 
of papers contributed by him to the Philosophical Transactions. 
Among those unpublished is a naturalist’s calendar, wTich he 
seems to have begun as a mere boy, and continued to within 
two years of his death in 1802. A few extracts from various, 
years will show its character, and afford points of comparison 
with Gilbert White’s : — 
“1736 [the first entry]. 
“ March 28. First swallows seen. S. 
,, 31. A flock of wild geese flew'. G. W. 
April 6. The cuckow heard. G. W. 
,, 8. The first martin observed. S. 
jMid. Cowslips flowered. 
,, Oaks put out, &c.” 
