6 3 8 
Gilbert White Reconsidered. 
[October, 
does not even appear to have visited the New Forest. 
Charles Waterton, on the contrary, passed many years in 
some of the most interesting parts of South America ; he 
visited Canada, the United States, and the West Indies. 
He was familiar with Spain and Italy, and indeed with the 
entire of Western Europe. His own park, where 200 acres 
of land fenced in by a lofty wall afforded a happy shelter to 
an the birds of the North of England, might be considered 
an excellent ornithological station. He lived, too, in days 
when every branch of biology had made great advances as 
compared with the eighteenth century. But the results 
which he has bequeathed to the world do not surpass those 
left behind him by Gilbert White in the degree that might 
have been expefted, either in quantity or in quality. It is 
probable, indeed, that Waterton must have made multitudes 
of observations, which from eccentricity he did not think fit 
to publish. He evidently paid a far greater attention to the 
structure of animals than did White, having, as he tells us, 
dissefted 5000 specimens. But where are the results ? 
Though second to no man, living or dead, in observing accu- 
rately anything that had aftually passed before his eyes, he 
was inferior to White in critical acumen, and presented an 
odd mixture of obstinate credulity and of scepticism equally 
stubborn. Witness his persistent denial of the fafts that 
serpents sometimes adt on the aggressive, and that wolves 
hunt in packs; of cannibalism, of the rationality of the 
lower animals, &c. ; and, on the other hand, his faith in 
phlebotomy and in the liquefaftion of the blood of St. Janu- 
arius, and in “ instinG:.” Where fa<5ts are wanting or 
doubtful White suspends judgment, but Waterton jumps to 
a conclusion. White, again, is gentle, unassuming, little 
disposed to criticise others, and eschewing controversy. 
Waterton, on the other hand, is irascible, pugnacious, never 
happier than when exposing the errors of Audubon or of 
the Quinarians. It must be admitted, however, that his 
temptations to severe criticism were such as never fell in 
the way of the kindly recluse of Selborne. What he might 
have said or done had he been shown a picture of a serpent 
with its poison-fangs pointing outwards, or had he been 
called upon to read and understand the works of Swainson, 
is another question. _ , ..... , 
Not the least pleasing feature in the works of Gilbert 
White is the thoroughness with which he, in old-fashioned 
phrase, “ sticks to his text.” He writes to give us his ob- 
servations on Natural History, and his opinions on other 
subjects he keeps to himself. Though living in the stormy 
