IRature IRotes : 
Zbe Selbonte Society’s fll>aga3me 
No. 97. JANUARY, 1898. Vol. IX. 
SELBORN IAN A. 
Sale of Gilbert White’s Manuscripts. — The original 
letters which Gilbert White wrote to Pennant between August 
10, 1767, and July 8, 1773, and which form part of the celebrated 
“ Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne,” were put up for 
sale at auction by Messrs. Sotheby, Wilkinson, and Hodge, at 
the end of November, and were purchased by Mr. Quaritch for 
/134. The same buyer also secured the unpublished MS. of 
Gilbert White’s “Garden Calendar,” dating from 1751 to 1767, 
for The MSS. had never been out of the possession of 
the family since White’s death. 
The Eating of Larks. — Larks are now’ often in the menu. 
They make, in truth, a delicate meat, but is it agreeable with 
Selbornian feeling to eat them ? They are being consumed 
by tens of thousands, and are rapidly diminishing in numbers. 
That alone should be sufficient to give pause in the destruction 
of any bird, even one of unmusical note, and dull, low tastes. 
But a skylark ! The blithe spirit which is surrounded, as it 
were, with a luminous halo of poetry, half religious. Can it be 
imagined that Wordsworth, after finishing his ode with — 
Type of the wise who soar, but never roam ; 
True to the kindred points of heaven and home 
could sit down to a dish of larks ? Or Shelley ? Would the 
author of 
Teach me half the gladness 
That thy brain must know, 
Such harmonious madness 
From my lips would flow, 
The world should listen then, as I am listening now ! 
call for lark pudding ? 
