630 
A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF 
[white 
Pennant ( q.v .) was then engaged on the octavo edition of his 
British Zoology ( 1768 - 70 ), in the compilation of which he 
freely availed himself of the information he received from 
Gilbert White. It has been frequently stated that Pennant 
did not give Gilbert White due acknowledgment for his 
contributions, but we must remember that at the time 
Pennant wrote such acknowledgment was rare, that Pennant 
was in his own opinion and that of his contemporaries by far 
the more eminent naturalist of the two, and that, moreover, 
in the octavo edition of the Zoology ( 1768 ) Pennant does 
make some acknowledgment ( vide Preface, p. xiii, and 
Appendix, p. 498 ), slight though it may be. 
It was through the Hon. Daines Barrington (q.v.), to whom 
the other letters in the Natural History were addressed, that 
White’s papers on the Swallows and Swifts were presented to 
the Royal Society. They were written in 1774-75 and were 
printed by the Royal Society in the Philosophical Trans- 
actions, and it was owing to Barrington’s persuasion that 
the Natural History of Selborne was published (cf. Bell, 
vol. i. pp. xlviii and 1). When Gilbert White first thought 
of embodying these letters in book form is uncertain, 
but we do know that in 1770 he was in correspondence with 
Barrington about “ my drawing up an account of the animals 
of this neighbourhood ” (Letter V. to Barrington), and four 
years afterwards he writes to his brother John (April 1774 ) : 
“ Out of all my journals I think I might collect matter enough 
. . . especially as to the ornithological part, and I have, 
moreover, half a century of letters on the same subject.” 
In February 1776 he writes to his nephew, Samuel Barker: 
“ Mr. Barr[ington] wants me to join with him in a Nat. Hist, 
publication ; but if I publish at all I shall come forth by 
myself.” A few weeks later Grimm was at Selborne taking 
views of the “ Hermitage ” and other places subsequently 
engraved for the volume, and in 1777 White was in consulta- 
tion with an engraver as to the cost of producing Grimm’s 
correspondence, a fact we have been able to verify from examination of the White- 
Pennant letters in possession of the Earl of Denbigh. 
