132 
NATURE NOTES 
During the Conversazione that followed, l\Ir. Knock gave a 
most interesting lantern lecture on “ Insect Marvels of a Town 
Garden,” and Dr. Bowdler Sharpe, F.R.S., communicated the 
following note on a portrait of Gilbert White : — 
A Portrait of Gilbert White. 
It has generally been supposed that no likeness of Gilbert 
White exists. Professor Bell expressly says that he never 
would sit for his portrait (ed. Selborne i., p. 58). At the same 
time he gives an account of Gilbert White’s personality : — 
” Gilbert White’s personal appearance has been described to me 
by his nephew, the late Rev. Francis White, who remembered 
him well. He was only five feet three inches in stature, of a 
spare form and remarkably upright carriage 
“ The supposition of some persons that the clergyman repre- 
sented in the large frontispiece to the first edition of his work 
was intended for him is therefore erroneous. It may be interest- 
ing to those who possess either of the 4to editions of the work, 
to be informed who were the persons represented in the frontis- 
piece. The first is the Rev. Robert Yalden, the vicar of Newton 
Valence; second, Mr. Etty, the brother of the vicar of Selborne ; 
third, Mrs. Yalden; and the fourth, Thomas Holt White, 
Gilbert’s brother.” 
On the other hand, we read in the summary of the Earl of 
Stamford’s address on “ Gilbert White’s Ancestors” (see Nature 
Notes, iv., p. 104), that Dr. J. T. White, whose father was 
Gilbert’s nephew, stated, on the authority of the latter, that 
“the figure coming up the hill” in the frontispiece to the 4to 
edition of Selborne was intended for Gilbert, and, though not 
exactly a portrait, was in general outline very like him. “ We 
have, then,” adds Lord Stamford, “ an approximate likeness of 
Gilbert.” 
I am not aware that this pronouncement of the Earl of 
Stamford has ever been seriously challenged. Professor Bell 
does not mention his authority for the description of the figures 
in the frontispiece of the original edition, but we may presume 
that it was the same Rev. Francis White, Gilbert’s nephew. 
Mr. Holt-White, in his “Life and Letters” seems to have 
acquiesced in the identifications given by Professor Bell. He 
accepts the statement that the Mrs. Yalden depicted by Grimm 
in November, 1776, was the lady who afterwards became the 
second wife of Benjamin White (then 61 years of age) in August, 
1786. She was the widow of the Rev. Richard Yalden (not 
“Robert” as Bell has it), the vicar of Newton Valence, who 
died in 1785 ; and the next year she married Benjamin White. 
Grimm went to Selborne to draw the pictures for Gilbert 
White’s book in July, 1776 {cf. Holt-White’s “ Life and Letters,” 
i., p. 324). He drew twelve pictures, as Gilbert tells his brother 
John in a letter from Meonstoke on August 9, 1776. On the 
