6 4 
NATURE NOTES 
One relic of antiquity remains, and this should be jealously 
guarded. It is the identical pulpit from which Gilbert White 
delivered his sermons. It is considerably grub-eaten, and may 
well be considered genuine. 
The floor around the reredos is laid with encaustic tiles, and 
as some of them are identical with those which are dug up in 
the garden ground of the Priory Farm near Selborne, it is 
highly probable that they were transported thence when the 
chancel was rebuilt. Similar tiles have been laid in Selborne 
Church at the west side of the south aisle. The chancel at 
Faringdon retains a piscina and an aumbry, whilst imme- 
diately on entering the church there is evidence on the right of 
the former existence of a holy-water stoup. In the churchyard 
is a very fine yew tree, and the trunk is strangely divided into 
a number of independent stems, these being isolated by the 
decomposition of the internal woody tissue. 
Faringdon is well worth a visit when next Selborne claims 
our members as worshippers at the Gilbertian shrine. 
Edward A. Martin. 
GILBERT WHITE AND LEPROSY. 
EADERS of White’s delightful “ Natural History of 
Selborne ” are no doubt familiar with the case of 
a pauper, which is described in Letter XXXVII. 
(Barrington Series) as follows : “ There was in this 
village several years ago a miserable pauper, who from his birth 
was afflicted with a leprosy, as far as we are aware, of a singular 
kind, since it affected only the palms of his hands and the soles of 
his feet. This scaly eruption usually broke out twice in the year 
—at the spring and fall — and by peeling away, left the skin so 
thin and tender that neither his hands nor feet were able to 
perform their functions, so that the poor object was half his time 
on crutches, incapable of employment, and languishing in a tire- 
some state of indolence and inactivity. His habit was lean, lank, 
and cadaverous. In this sad plight he dragged on a miserable 
existence, a burden to himself and his parish, which was obliged 
to support him till he was relieved by death at more than 30 
years of age. The good women, who love to account for every 
defect in children by the doctrine of longing, said that his mother 
felt a great propensity for oysters which she was unable to 
gratify, and that the black rough scurf on his hands and feet were 
the shells of that fish. We knew his parents, neither of which 
were lepers ; his father in particular lived to be far advanced 
in years.” 
That White meant the true leprosy is made evident by 
his subsequent remarks on that disease, but which I need not 
