Dear Sir,

Your letter of Sepmemb^r: 6:^th gave me a great deal of entertainment & satisfaction: & the more satisfaction because I really began to fear from y^r long & usual silence that you might be prevented from writing by sickness or some accident that might have befallen you in y^r Caernarvon: tour. But as I much esteem y^r friendly correspondence already I desire you will not make use of any such methods of enhancing the value of it for the future.

My thanks & are due to you for y^r troubles & care in the examination of a buck’s head. As far as your discoveries reach at present, they seem much to corroborate my suspicions: & I hope Mr Hunter may find reason to give his decision in _^^my favour: & then, I think, we may advance this extraordinary provision of Nature as a new instance of the wisdom of God in the creation.

I receive y^r kind Invitation into Flinshire as a fresh instance of y^r friendly disposition towards me: but whether my health, or the want of command of my time will ever permit me to gratify myself with so pleasing a tour & visit, I cannot pretend to say: however I depend much on having it in my power to give you a meeting _^ⁱⁿ town next spring: & it would be matter of high entertainment & instruction to me to be able to accompany you in y^r pursuits after natural knowledge.

As yet I have not quite done with the history of the Oedicnemus: for I have desired a Gent: in Sussex (near whos house they congregate in great flocks in the autumn) to observe nicely when they leave him, if they do leave him; & when they return in the spring. I was with this Gent: lately, & saw several single birds.

As I do not live nearer to any sand-banks than three miles, I am not so conversant with the sand-martins as with their congeners. However I know in general that they appear as soon as the swallows, & retire much about the same time. As their stay is of such length, there is little reason to doubt but that they breed twice like the swallow, & hose-martin: but this I do not advance as from my own knowledge. How strange is it that so feeble a little bird as the sand-martin with it’s soft bill * weak claws should be able to terebrate such deep holes in the hard sand-banks? & yet there is no manner of doubt but that these Latebræ areof their own boring. Some, I see, are now left not more than an Inch deep; some three or four; & must remain Ao In_^^uncompleted ‘til some future summer. I remember but one instance of their deviating from this manner of building in Banks; & that is at Bishop’s Waltham in Hants, where these birds have nested time out of mind in great numbers in the scaffold-holes and crannies of the walls of the Bishop’s old stables, which are now malt-houses. One colony of these martins on the verge of our forest has been dispossessed of their caverns by the house-sparrows, who breed in them, as they often do in the nests of house-martins. Mr Peter Collinson, I remember, procured several of these holes to be dug-out to the bottom in winter, & found that they were about two feet deep, & serpentine; but contained nothing but old nests. It appears by my Nat:Journal, that sand-martins appeared _^^{were seen}in plenty on Septem^r 16.^th They always haunt near great lakes, & waters.

I met with a paragraph in the news-papers some weeks ago that gave me some odd sensations, a kind of mixture of pleasure & pain at the same time; it was as follows: “On the sixth ay of August Joseph Banks Esq. accompanyed by Dr: Solander, Mr Green the astronomer, & c: set out for Deal in order to embark aboard the Endeavour Captain Cook bund for the South-seas”.

When I reflect on the youth & affluence of this enterprising Gent:¹ I am filled with wonder _^^{to see} how conspicuously the contempt of dangers, & _^^of the love excelling in his favourite studies stand forth in his character. And yet tho’ I admire his resolution, which scorns to stoop to any difficulties; I cannot divest myself of some degree of solicitudes for his person. The circumnavigation of the globe is an undertaking that must shock the constitution of a person inured to a sea-faring life from his childhood: & how much more that of a land-man? May we not hope that this strong Impulse, which urges forward this distinguished Naturalist to brave the intemperance of every Climate; may also lead him to the discovery of something highly beneficial to mankind? If he survives, with what delight shall we peruse his Journals, his Fauna, his Flora?

- - - - - if he fails by the way, I shall revere his fortitude, & contempt of pleasure, & indulgencies: But shall always regret him, tho’ my knowledge of his worth was of late date, & my acquaintance with him but slender.

It is, I find, in zoology as it is in Botany: all nature is so full, that that district produces the greatest variety which is the most examined.

Several birds which are said to belong to the N: only, are, it seems, often to be found in the S. I have discovered this summer three species of birds with us, which writers mention as only to be seen in northern counties. The first that was brought me (May the 14.) was the tringa hypolecus: it was a cock bird, & haunted the Banks of some ponds near the village: & as it had a companion, most probably _^^it intended to have bred near that water. Besides the owner told me that on recollection he had seen some of the same birds round his pond in former summers.

The next bird that I procured (May 21.) was a male larius collusis. My Neighb^r: who shot it says, that it would have escaped his notice, had not the outcries and chatterings of the white-throat & other small birds drawn his attention to the bush where it was. It’s craw was filled with the legs & wings of beetles.

The next rare birds (procured for me last week) were some Turdi torquate. This week twelvemonths my Brother from Fleetstreet² being with us, was amusing himself with a gun; & found he told us, on an old yew-hedge where there were berries, some birds like black-birds with white rings round their neks. A Neighb^r: famrer also at the same time made the same observation: but as no specimens were produced little notice was taken. However I mentioned this circumstance to you in my letter of Novemb^r: 4:1767: but you did not much regard my information, as I had not seen the birds myself. But now last week the aforesaid farmer, seeing a large flock, 20 or 30 of these birds, shot two cocks & two hens: & says on recollection, that he remembers now to have seen these birds again last spring about lady day, as it were on their return to the N.

Now perhaps these ouzels are not the ouzels of the N: of England: but belong to the more norther parts of Europe; & may retire before the excessive rigor of the frosts in those regions; & return by us to breed in the spring when the cold abates. If this be the case, here is discovered a new winter bird of passage, concerning whose migrations the writers are silent: & if these birds should prove the ouzels of the N: of England; then here is a migration disclosed within our own kingdom, never before taken notice of. It does not yet appear whether these turdi torquate retire beyond the bounds of our Island to the S: but it is most probably that they do; or else one cannot suppose that they would have remained so long unnoticed in the southern counties. They are larger than blackbirds, & fed on haws: but last year (when there were no haws) fed on yew-berries. Their stay with us seems to be very short, only en passant.

I am purswaded from the accounts of two or three people that the Sturnus cindus is sometimes seen in these parts: But more frequently round Lewes in Sussex.

As you have been so lately on the study of reptiles, I must not omit to tell you, that my people ever now & then of late draw-up in a bucket of water from my well (which is 75 feet deep) a large black, warty eft with a fin-tail, & yellow belly: how they came first down at that depth: & howe they were ever to have got thence without help is more than I am able to say.

P:S: young martins in their nest Septemb^r: 25.^th

Swallows & martins still appear, Octob^r: t.^th

I am with the greatest esteem, your obliged, & mot obedient Servant

Gil: White

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Editorial notes

1. White is refering to Sir Joseph Banks
2. Benjamin White