Sir

I had the favour of y^r letter; & am much obliged to you for the Candour with which you received my trifling observations. I shall wait with some impatience for y^r thoughts on the Falco: as to it’s weight, &: I wish I had taken it down on paper at the time: but to the best of my remembrance it weighed two pounds & eight ounces; & measured from wing to wing 38 inches.

It’s care & feet were yellow; & the circle of its eye lids was of a bright yellow: but as it had been killed some days before I saw it, I could make no observation on the colour of the pupil of it’s eye.

The most unus_^^ual birds I ever observed in these parts were a pair of Hoopoes (Upupæ) which cam several years ago, & frequented an ornamental piece of Ground that joins to my Garden. They used to appear feeding in the walks many times in a day; & at last made a nest on the Ground in my meadow: but before I knew any thing of the matter the nest & eggs (neither of which I saw) were taken by some idle boys. Three gross beaks (Loxiæ coccothraustes) appeared some years ago in my fields in the winter; one of which I shot. A crossbill (Loxiæ curvirostra) was killed last year in this neighbourhood.

Our streams (which are very small & rise at each end of the village) yield only the bull’s head, or miller’s thumb (Gobius fluviatilis capitæfus) the trout, (trutta fluv:) the eel (anguilla) the blind lamprey (lampætra cæca)¹ & the minow (varius, seuphoscinus lævis). At present I only know of two species of Bats, the common vespertilio murinus², & the vesp: auritus. I was much entertained last summer with a tame bat which I met with, that would eat flies out of a person’s hand: while it was eating it brought its wings round before its mouth, hovering in the manner of birds of prey while they feed. During the time that I amused myself with this wonderful quadorupede, I saw it several times confute the vulgar notion, “that it cannot fly _^^off from the ground,” by rising with great ease from the floor. It ran, I observed, with more dispatch than I was aware of, but in a most ridiculous, & grotesq manner. It would eat flesh, particularly fat bacon; but seemed most pleased with insects.

As we are twenty miles from the sea, & almost as many from a great river we see but little of wild fowl: only we have a few teams of ducks bred where the snipes breed: & some widgeons, & teals in hard weather.

Having some acquaintance with a common brown, or Ivy-owl (the strix of Ray) I find that it casts up the_^^fresh fur of mice, & the feathers of birds in pellets after the manner of the hawk-kind. When full, dog-like, it hides in the earth what it cannot eat. The young of the white barn-owl, I find, is not so easily raised, as it wants a constant supply of mice whereas the former will eat any kind of dead thing. We have some few horned owls in this neighbourhood: the otus of Ray. As yet I have procured none of those squirrel-coloured slender mice³: but now harvest is come shall probably get some. They build their nests, I hear, up amidst the stalks of the standing corn above the ground.

I never have met with such a Salicaria⁴ as you mention: if one comes in my way, it will not escape my notice.

The martins have still squab young ones: & the swallows are now bringing out broods. The last swift I saw was about the 21 of August.

Redstarts, fly-catchers, white throats, & reguli non cristati⁵ still appear: but I have seen no_^^young black-caps for some time.

We have had most sweet harvest weather still within these few days: most of our wheat has been in some time.

The failure of hops is pretty general: & as to apples we have none.

I forgot to mention in my last that I once saw in Christ Church Coll: Oxon on a very sunny warm morning a martin young^flying about, &settling on the battlements so late as the 20th Nov:

The district I live in is a very abrupt, uneven Country full of hills, & woods; & therefore full of birds. Our great variety of soils makes it exceed also in Botany. We have some curious plants, such as the Lathræa squammaria. monotropa hypopitys, vaccinium oxycoccos, vaccinium myrtillus, drosera rotundifolia, ophrys nidus avis, & c: & a very great variety of the common sorts of plants: not to mention numbers that must escape one pair of eyes.

I should take it as a favour if you could procure me some seeds of any of the following plants, which we never see in the south: viz: the Cypripedium calceolus, pinguicula vulg: polygonum viviparum, thlaspi montanum⁶, Actæa spicata, rubrus chamæmorus, or Andromeda polifolia

Hoping for the favour of a letter from you soon I am with the greatest esteem Yr most obliged, & obedient Servant,

Gil: White.

Selborne near Alton, Hants. August Septem^r:1767

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Editorial notes

1. Dr Claude B. Renaud (Research Associate (Ichthyology) at the Canadian Museum of Nature) responded (by email 18th November 2023 to James Maclaine, Senior Curator (Fish) at the Natural History Museum, London) that neither 'blind lamprey' nor 'Lampaetra caeca' were associated with any particular species. In his opinion Lampaetra caeca is rather an enigmatic name because caeca means blind sac or pouch in Latin. He postulates that perhaps it referes to a lamprey with a gular pouch. The only lamprey living in the British Isles that sometimes develops a small gular pouch is Petromyzon marinus. Ref Monette & Renaud (2005) 'The gular pouch in northern hemisphere parasitic lampreys (Petromyzontidae)' Canadian Journal of Zoology. 83:527-535(2005) doi: 10.1139/ZO5-37
2. White is incorrectly using the species name for the Part-coloured bat here. He however is referring to the Pipistrelle group of species
3. this becomes the Harvest Mouse)
4. GW is referring to warblers here, species however cannot be determined
5. White was the first person to definitely differentiate between three species of warbler (the Chiff Chaff, the Willow Warbler, and the Wood Warbler). Here he uses 'reguli non cristati' to refer to the Wood Warbler. See also letter 9 (17th August 1768).
6. Thlaspi montanum is a basionym of Noccaea montana (Apline Pennycress) native to North America, and widespread in Europe. However Alpine Penny-Cress is also the common name of Thlaspi caerulescens, a native species to the UK. It is likely that this is the species being referenced by White.
7. addition made by Thomas Pennant