July 11.] THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 210 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
M 
D 
W jl JULY 11 — 17 , 1850. 
Weather near London 
in 1849. 
Sun 
Rises. 
Sun 
Sets. 
Moon 
R. & S. 
Moon’s 
Age. 
Clock 
bef. Sun. 
Day of 
Year. 
,, 
Tn Elephant Hawk Moth seen. 
T. 8l°—47°. 
E. 
Fine. 
57 a. 3 
13 a. 8 
9 
33 
2 
5 
5 
192 
12 
F I Magpie Moth seen. 
T. 81°—52°. 
N.E. 
Fine. 
58 
12 
10 
7 
3 
5 
13 
193 
13 
S 1 Hoplia Argentea seen. 
T. 81°—48°. 
E. 
Fine. 
IV 
11 
10 
36 
4 
5 
20 
194 
14 
Son!i7 Sun. aft. Trinity. Drinker Moth seen. 
T. 81°—52°. 
N.E. 
Fine. 
1 
10 
11 
2 
5 
5 
27 
195 
15 
M St. Swithin. White Horehound flowers. 
T. 75°—49°. 
N.E. 
Fine. 
2 
9 
11 
26 
6 
5 
34 
196 
16 
Tu Blackbird’s song ceases. 
T. 81°—51°. 
N. 
Fine. 
3 
8 
11 
49 
3 
5 
40 
197 
17 
W 1 Burnished Brass Moth seen. 
T. 69 0 —49°. 
s.w. 
Rain. 
4 
7 
morn. 
8 
5 
46 
198 
In a very secluded village church-yard of the county of Hampshire, and 
at the head of a grave, overgrown with the greenest and softest of grass, 
stands a stone bearing no other inscription than this— 
G. W. 
26th June, 
1793. 
A brief memorial, yet not unfitting. It marks the last resting place of 
him who wrote The Natural History of S el borne —of Gilbert White ; 
of whom every feature in the vicinitv recalls the remembrance ; for each 
of those features was pourtrayed by him with truthfulness, and are, 
therefore, unchanged. In words he delineated nature as he found her; 
and, unlike the fashions of the world, her garb is the same in 1850 as it 
was just a century before; at which date he left Selborne to be admitted 
a Senior Proctor of Oxford. Than that village, of which the natural pro¬ 
ductions and antiquities he has immortalized, Gilbert White needs no 
memorial, for when we have found the grave in which he rests, and know 
that that grave is in Selborne Churchyard, we feci that it is all as it 
should be. The eye would require an effort to confine it to any inscrip¬ 
tion, though penned by his playfellows, the Wartons; for that eye 
involuntarily turns to the old trees, and Nore Hill, and the Hanger Copse, 
and “the deep lanes,” and the epitaph springs unbidden to the lips, for 
it is written on the memory and on the heart—“ And this is White's 
Selborne l ” White was not a gardener, but he loved plants, and insects, 
and birds ; and he mingled with them, and jotted down a narrative of all 
their ways naturally, therefore, eloquently; for he who writes or talks of 
what lie loves, thinking only of his subject, and not of how he shall write 
or talk of it, will ever be eloquent. In this is the charm and the 
strength of his volume,—a volume w'hich never wearies, which makes the 
lover of nature more enamoured still, and wins from the veriest worldling 
a wish to ramble, and watch, and tell of her goings on in quiet places. 
White (he is one of those intimates of all to whose name no one can 
prefix Mr.) was well fitted for the task he undertook ; the aspect of every 
tree, of every stream, and of every rood of ground, as it changed its 
colour with the season, were knowledge intimately his, for brief indeed 
was the space during which he had been absent from Selborne between 
the dates of his first and last breath, which were both inhaled within its 
boundary. Four lines of his verses—for he was a poet too—tell us of 
his birth-place. 
“ Nor be the parsonage by the muse forgot; 
The partial bard admires his native spot; 
Smit with its beauties, loved, as yet a child, 
(Unconscious why), its scapes grotesque and wild.” 
Insects. —So numerous have been the inquiries as to the nature of the 
thread-like and intricately-twisting worm which has occurred abundantly 
since the rains following the hot weather, that we are induced here to 
insert a drawing and notice as a general answer. It is the Gordius 
a (/nations. It belongs, like the leech, to the class Suctoria, or suckers ; 
scarcely exhibits any marks of articulation on its body, and has no dis¬ 
tinct respiratory organs. Its colour is pale brown, and being found in 
such a twisted form, as already noticed, suggested its name after the 
inventor of the Gordian knot. The mouth is a simple pore at the fore 
extremity of the body, which is conical; but the tail being forked, as 
represented at a, has often been mistaken for its mouth. Its habits are 
little known, but we are inclined to think it one of the friends of the gar- 
So few and brief are the known facts of his biography, that even within 
our brief space we may comprise the whole. His father was “ John 
White, of Selborne, Esquire,” and his mother, “Anne, daughter of 
Thomas Holt, Rector of Streatham, in Surrey;” and he was born on the 
18th of July, 1720. The routine of his education proceeded at a school in 
Basingstoke, under the vicar of the place, Mr. Warton, best known as the 
father of two sons, one of whom became Master of Winchester School 
and the other Professor of Poetry at Oxford. In December, l/39> White 
was admitted a student of Oriel College in that University, took liis 
Bachelor’s degree in the October of 1746, and was elected a Senior 
Proctor in April 1752. Such are the few dated events of his life of which 
a record remains. He returned to his native village ; officiated occasion¬ 
ally as its curate; refused to leave it, though tempted with the offers of 
rich College livings ; and died there, at the date so briefly chronicled on 
his gravestone, being at the time Master of Arts and Senior Fellow of 
his College. But we have his imperishable monument in our hand ; a 
volume, brief as it is, that has been more effectual than any other in 
rendering Natural History popular; a volume always pleasing, always 
fresh, because its sketches are from nature ; unconnected, yet founded on 
the best of all systems—the systematic pursuit of truth, Neither did 
truth often escape from a pursuer so unwearied, for we think that no one 
has contributed so large an amount of original and truthful information 
concerning the instincts and habits of our native animals. By publishing 
that information he tells us that he hoped to induce “ a more ready 
attention to the wonders of the creation, too frequently overlooked as 
common occurrences.” How entirely that hope has been realized each 
generation which has since passed, or is now passing away, has borne 
general and ready testimony. But had he failed in his kind and pious 
effort,—“if,” as he says, “ I shall not be successful in any of these my 
intentions, yet there remains this consolation behind—that these pursuits, 
by keeping the body and mind employed, have, under Providence, con¬ 
tributed to much health and cheerfulness of spirits, even to old age.” 
Let our readers dwell upon this testimony of one of the most truthful; 
let them impress this testimony upon the minds of their children ; and 
let us be believed when we add, as our experience, that if they succeed in 
planting in their offspring a love of Natural History, they have by so 
much endowed them with the materials of many hours of never-regretted 
happiness. 
Meteorology of the Week. —The average highest and lowest tem¬ 
peratures during the above seven days, from observations made at Chis¬ 
wick during the last twenty-three years, are 75° and 52° respectively. 
The greatest heat observed was 94°, on the 17 th, in 1834 ; and the extreme 
cold, 41°, occurred on the 15t.h, in 1848. There were 105 fine days, and 
56 during which rain fell in the 
period. 
Phenomena Indicative of 
Weather. — When the Swallow 
flies low and skims over the sur¬ 
face of the ground or of the water, 
frequently dipping the tips of its 
wings or bill into the latter as it 
glides along, we may conclude that 
rain will soon occur. The two 
reasons for this lowness of flight 
may be, that at such times insects 
are more busy near the earth’s sur¬ 
face, and that the rarity of the air 
then renders flying more laborious 
in proportion to the height to which 
a bird soars. Swans flying against 
the wind, says Mr. Forster, por¬ 
tend rain ; and, he adds, that he 
frequently noticed this sign and its 
fulfilment. Violins, and other mu¬ 
sical instruments having catgut 
strings, never emit such perfect 
tones when the air becomes damp 
just before and during rainy wea¬ 
ther. Neither will they keep so 
well in tune, for the catgut conti¬ 
nues to expand in proportion to 
the moisture of the air. 
dener, for two parties observed one escape lately from the body of a 
beetle, which they found writhing on the ground. 
RANGE OF BAROMETER—RAIN IN INCHES. 
July 
1841. 
1842. 
1843. 
1844. 
1845. 
1846. 
1847- 
1818. 
1849- 
11 
B 129.572 
• 129.266 
29.869 
30.160 
2Q.880 
29 722 
30.140 
30.151 
30.417 
30.343 
29.611 
30.009 
29 .809 
29.533 
30.083 
30.132 
30.380 
30.325 
12 
R. — 
T> / 29.594 
129.578 
0 02 
30.026 
30.147 
29.930 
0.71 
29.946 
30.142 
30.170 
30.448 
30.343 
29.832 
30.085 
29.870 
29.907 
30.070 
30.165 
30.439 
30.257 
13 
R. 0.02 
B f 29719 
129.630 
30.232 
30.040 
0.06 
29-905 
0.07 
29 910 
30.063 
30.195 
30.423 
30.213 
30.143 
30.022 
29.494 
29.811 
29.717 
30.184 
30.358 
30.202 
14 
R. 0 02 
B / 29 726 
\ 29.570 
30.337 
0.07 
30.059 
0.53 
29.679 
o.ot 
30.035 
29.771 
30.193 
30.310 
30.202 
30.300 
30.018 
29.530 
29-884 
29.664 
30.137 
30.198 
30.129 
R. 0.07 
T> f29./42 
K -\ 29.646 
30.388 
30.117 
29.923 
0.04 
30.069 
29-907 
30.140 
0.04 
30.260 
30.136 
30.252 
30.048 
29.809 
30.059 
29.812 
30.112 
30.225 
30.125 
16 
R. 1.46 
B I 29-977 
129.874 
30.175 
30.034 
29.994 
0.03 
30.045 
29.763 
30.047 
30.299 
30.118 
30.003 
30.191 
29919 
30.005 
29-504 
29-982 
30.230 
29.990 
R. 0.01 
— ‘ 
— 
— 
0.07 
0.02 
— 
— 
— 
! 17 
n f 30.013 
129.820 
29.894 
30.242 
30.023 
30.02Q 
29.511 
29-984 
30.171 
29.864 
29-789 
30.143 
29.848 
29.974 
29.406 
29.916 
30.122 
/ 
29.725 
1 
R. — 
— 
— 
0.02 
0.06 
0.56 
0.07 
No. XCII1., Vol. IV. 
