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Updated: May 3, 2025
What a change from the temper of two generations since, when the naturalist was looked on as a harmless enthusiast, who went "bug- hunting," simply because he had not spirit to follow a fox! But the book, perhaps, which turned the tide in favour of Natural History, among the higher classes at least, in the south of England, was White's "History of Selborne."
Gilbert White, in The Natural History of Selborne, refers to these ponds in a very interesting letter on the subject, including details of condensation by trees, in which he gives an instance of a particular pond, high up on the Down, 300 feet above his house, and situated in such a position that it was impossible for it to receive any water from springs or drainage, which "though never above three feet deep in the middle, and not more than thirty feet in diameter, and containing, perhaps, not more than two or three hundred hogsheads of water, yet never is known to fail, though it affords drink for three hundred or four hundred sheep, and for at least twenty head of large cattle besides."
He changed his voice, seemed to alter his figure, but of course the make-up remained. He was a perfect genius in altering his appearance. "Was that the lady?" he asked. "Zena mentioned you were yachting with a Mrs. Selborne down here. I don't think she quite liked it. She was woman enough to read between the lines of your letter." "Oh, nonsense!" I exclaimed.
In a good many places in Germany a similar process is gone through to cure lumbago. Indra, the god of Thunder among the Hindoos, drew a sick man thrice through a hole, and thereby gave him health and new birth. From passing under the earth the custom passed to going through a split tree, the tree representing the coffin. An interesting account of this usage will be found in White's "Selborne."
"Cospetto!" said Riccabocca, "you contrive to put every experience of yours to some use, even your journey on Mr. Hazeldean's pad. And I now see why, in this little world of a village, you have picked up so general an acquaintance with life." "Did you ever read White's' Natural History of Selborne'?" "No."
His 'Physiologic du Goût' "that olla podrida which defies analysis," as Balzac calls it belongs, like Walton's 'Compleat Angler', or White's 'Selborne', among those unique gems of literature, too rare in any age, which owe their subtle and imperishable charm primarily to the author's own delightful personality.
Rolling and wheezing, the oracle answered: "Swallows," said he, "certainly sleep all the winter. A number of them conglobulate together by flying round and round, and then all in a heap throw themselves under water and lie in the bed of a river." Boswell gravely dockets the information. However, if I remember right, even so sound a naturalist as White of Selborne had his doubts about the swallows.
The botanist of New Jersey or the ornithologist of Esopus-on-Hudson is expected to give an affirmative reply to similar questions concerning his chosen hunting-grounds, if, indeed, he does not avail himself of that happy aphorism with which Gilbert White was wont to instruct his questioners concerning the natural-history harvest of his beloved Selborne: "That locality is always richest which is most observed."
ONE of the most delightful books in my father's library was White's "Natural History of Selborne." For me it has rather gained in charm with years. I used to read it without knowing the secret of the pleasure I found in it, but as I grow older I begin to detect some of the simple expedients of this natural magic. Open the book where you will, it takes you out of doors.
It has been severely, but justly, pointed out that wherever Pennant rises superior, either in style or information, to his own dead level of pompous inexactitude, he is almost certainly quoting from a letter of Gilbert White's. Yet no acknowledgment of the Selborne parson is vouchsafed; "even in the account of the harvest-mouse," says Professor Bell, "there is no mention of its discoverer."
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