Dear Sir,

Your obliging letter dated May the 4^th: came to Selborne while I was in London; but was sent-up after me. While in town I was often in company with y^r friend Mr Barington; & cannot say enough in commendation of the candor, & affability of that Gentleman. Even M^r: Banks (notwithstanding he was so soon to leave the kingdom, & undertake his immense Voyage) afforded me some hours of his conversation at his new House, where I met Dr: Solander¹.

I am now to return you my sincere thanks for y^r agreeable present of the British zoology, which I accept with great satisfaction as a token of y^r friendship: & shall look upon y^r worth as an ornament to my little shelf of natural History.

As far as I have been able to compare any animals with y^r descriptions, I find them just & apt; & such as may readily help the reader to ascertain any quadrupeds or bird that falls in his way.

with good & perseverance please you of my preference; & practical which in the study of nature. But inform of the to that high of with glad myself & .

Last night arrived y^r agreeable letter of June 10^th. It gives me great satisfaction to find that you pursue y^r studies still with such vigour & are in such forward ways with regard to reptiles, & fishes. The reptiles, few as they are, I am not acquainted with, so well as I could wish, with regard to their natural history. The method in which toads procreate & bring forth seems to be very obscure. Some authors say that they are viviparous: & yet Ray classes them among his oviparous animals, & is silent with regard to their manner of bringing forth. Perhaps they may be Έδω μέν ώοτόκl, Έξω δε ζωοτόκοΙ as is indisputably the case of the viper. The copulation of frogs (or at least the appearance of it: for Swammeram proves that the male has no penis intrans) is notorious to every body: because we see them sticking upon each others backs for a month together in the spring: & yet I never saw or read of toads being observed in the same circumstances. It is strange that the matter with regard to the venome of toads has not been yet settled! That they are not noxious to some animals is plain, for ducks, oedichemi, & c: eat them with impunity.

I need not remind a Gent: of y^r extensive reading of the excellent account there is from Mr: Derham in Ray's wisdom of God in the Creation (p: 365.) concerning the migration of frogs from their breeding ponds. In this account he at once subverts that foolish opinion of their dropping from the Clouds in showers of rain, showing that it is from the grateful coolness & moisture of those showers that they are tempted to set out on their travels.

Frogs are yet in general in their tadpole state: but in a few weeks our lanes, paths, fields, will swarm with myriads of these migratory crawlers, no^t larger than my finger-nail. Swammerdam gives a most accurate account of the method & attitudes in which the male frog impregnates the spawn of the females.

It is to be remembered that the Salamandra aquatica of Ray the water-newt or eft, will frequently bite at the angler’s bait, & is often caught on his hook. From all that I could ever gather from Authors I never made any doubt but that the Salamandra aquatica was hatched, lived, & dyⁱed in the waters, being a species per se. But no eft a man has ^Mr Ellis F:R:S: (the coraline Ellis) I suppo with what I was once acquainted ound my afte in_^^a letter to the Royal society dated June 5:1766. in his account of the mud-inguana.an amphibious biper from S: Carolina, --- that the water-eft or neut is only the larva of the land-eft, as tadpoles are of frogs. Least I should be suspected to misunderstand his meaning. I shall give it you in his own words. Speaking of the opercula or coverings to the gills of the mud-inguana, he proceeds to say, “That the form of these pennated coverings approach very near to what I have some time ago observed in the larva or aquatic state of our English lacerta, known by the mane of eft or neut; which serve them for coverings to their gills, & for fins to swim with while in this state; & which they lose, as well as the fins of their tails when they change their state, & become land animals; as I have observed by keeping them alive for some time myself.”

Now whether you are acquainted with this Gent: or not, it would be best, I should think, for the advancement of knowledge, to write him a letter: & you may, if you think fit, make use of my name, as of that of a person once known to him at the Duke of Nottingham’s House at the Xxxxgey. ² Providence has been so kind to us as to allow of but one venomous reptile of the serpent kind in these kingdoms, & that is the viper. As to the blind-worm (anguis fragilis, so called because it snaps in pieces at a small stroke) I have found on examination that it is perfectly innocuous.

A neighbouring yeoman (to whom I am indebted for some good hints) killed & opened a female viper about may 27^th He found her filled with a chain of eleven eggs about the size of those of a blackbird; but none of them were advanced towards a state of maturity so far as to contain any rudiments of young³. Tho’ they are oviparous, yet the are viviparous also, hatching their young within themselves, & then excluding them. Whereas the snake lays a chain of eggs every year in my ^hot melon beds (in spite of all that my people can do to prevent them) which eggs do not hatch ‘til the spring following mas I have often experienced. Several intelligent ^fellows people assure me that they have seen the viper open her mouth & admit her helpless young on sudden surprizes down her throat; just as the female does her brood into the pouch under her belly upon (the) like emergencies: & yet the London viper-catchers insist on it to M^r Barrington that no such thing ever happens. The serpent-kind eat I believe, but once a year; or at least but only at one season of the year. Country people talk much of a water-snake; but I suppose without any reason: for the common snakes (coluber natrix) delights much to sport in the water, perhaps with a view to frogs, & other food. Merret I trust is widely mistaken when he advances that the Rana arborea is a native of England. ⁱ

I (can’t well guess how you are to make-out y^r twelve species of reptiles, unless it be by_^^Including the various species of the lacerti⁴, of which Ray enumerates five. I have had no opportunity of ascertaining these; but] remember well to have seen formerly several beautiful green lacerti on the sunny sand-banks near Farnham in Surry: & Ray admits there are such in Ireland.

I should now proceed to the answering some queries in y^r last, & to congratulating you on the discovery of a new of Salicaria: but having destined this epistle altogether to the service of reptiles I shall, , stick to my text; & defer such matters ‘til a further opportunity, ‘til the next time I have the honour to write to you. )

P:S: I return you my thanks for y^r Intention of sending me eight oct: pages of y^r catalogue of British birds: but by some mistake you have sent me duplicates; for each 8^ero_^^Sheet: runs page 1:2:_ __ _ _ _ _ 7:8. so that I have none of the middle of the catalogues: I have no Genus from N^o: 51: to N^o: 179.

I have been informed from undoubted authority that some ^family ladies of peculiar taste took a fancy to a toad which they nourished summer after summer_^^{In Devon}, ‘til he grew to a monstrous size, with the maggots which turn to flesh-flies. The reptile used to come forth every evening from an hole under the garden-steps; & was taken up after supper on the table to be fed. But at last a tame raven spizing him as he put forth his head, gave him a severe blow with his horney beak ^{which put out one of his eyes, & at last} & put an end at once to his being, & his patron_^^'s esses strange amusement. There is a dubiousness & obscurity attend in The propagation of the reptile kind, something analogous to that of the cryptogamia in the sexual system of plants.

I am &c

I am with the greatest esteem, yrs: &c: &c

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Editorial notes

1. This might be Bank's home at New Burlington Street, which he didn't formally move to until 1771 when he returned from his travels. No information has been able to be obtained so far on if he took interim lodgings before his voyage.
2. This section has been crossed out by what appears to be three different hands. One double crosses out Duke, Nottingham's House, and the final obscured location, then a pen and pencil are separately used to cross out the entire paragraph. This has the appearance of editorial alterations, and is similar to changes made for production of the manuscript. Where this letter doesn't have an address section or evidence of posting, I question if this is an original letter, or a manuscript copy from the book creation.
3. White's journal records this as from the 29th May 1768, however no further information is given as to the identity of the 'local Yeoman' he refers to
4. reptiles