Dear Sir,

Your obliging & communicative letter of Octob^r 23:rd lies before me; & ought not any longer to remain unanswered. It is a great pleasure to me to find that amidst your various & extensive correspondence, & the daily labours of your work in hand you still afford time to pay regard to my trifling remarks, & discoveries; which a man cannot avoid stumbling upon now & then, if he lives altogether in the country, & gives any attention at all to the works of Nature. Happy the man! who knows, like you, how to keep himself innocently & usefully employed especially where his studies tend to the advancement of knowledge, & the benefit of Society. And happy would it be for many more men of fortune if they knew what to do with their time; if they knew how to shun “The pains & penalties of Idleness”, how much dissipation, riot, & excess would they escape; not without the complacency of finding themselves growing still better neighbours & better common-wealths-men?

Poor Mr: Banks! his undertakings are Vertu in excess: & I could almost wish he had followed your advice, & sent a proxy. But then he would have foregone the honour & praise due to such a disinterested hazarding of his life; which a very sensible man the other day told me much more merited a peerage than the enterprize undertaken by L^d: Anson.

I am sorry D^r: Hunter has given you no better satisfaction with regard to the Buck’s head; as I was in hopes the suspicions concerning the extraordinary provision for smelling bestowed on that animal would have been cleared up at once by that Gent: in a matter so much in his own way.ⁱ

With regard to the Oedicnemus, I intend to write very soon to my friend near Chichester, in whose neighbourhood those birds seem most to abound; & shall urge him to take particular notice when they begin to congregate:; & afterwards to watch them most narrowly whether they do not withdraw themselves during the dead of the winter. When I have got information with respect to this circumstance I shall have finished my History of the Charadrius Oed:¹ which I hope will prove to y^r satisfaction, as it will be, I trust, very near the truth. Tis Gent: as he occupies a large farm of his own, & is abroad early & late, will be a very proper spy upon the motions of these birds: & besides as I have prevailed on him to buy the Naturalist’s Journal (with which he seems much delighted) I shall expect that he produces chapter & verse for what he says; that is, that he be very exact in his dates. It is very extraordinary, as you observe that a bird so common with us should never migrate to you!

And here I will mention, while I think of it, an anecdote which the above-mentioned Gent: told me when I was last at his house; which was, that in a warren joining to his outlet many Jack-daws (corvi monedulæ) build every year in the rabbit-burroughs under ground. The way he & his brothers used to take the nests while they were boys was, by listening to the mouths of the holes; & when they heard the young ones cry, they twisted-out the nest with an hooked stick I have read of water-fowls (puffins) breeding in that manner: but should never have suspected the j:daws of building in holes on the flat ground. An other very unlikely spot is made use of by daws as a place to breed in & that is Stonehenge. These birds deposit their nests in the interstices between the upright & the transom-stones of that amazing work of antiquity. Which circumstance alone speaks the prodigious height of the upright stones: that they should be tall enough to secure these nests from the annoyances of shepherd-boys, who are always idling round that place.

You judge quite right, I think, in speaking with reserve & caution concerning the cures done by toads. For let people advance what they will on such subjects; yet there is such a propensity in mankind towards deceiving & being deceived, that one cannot safely relate any thing in print of new discoveries without expressing some degree of doubt & suspicion.

Your approbation with regard to my new discovery of the migration of the ring-ouzel gives me satisfaction. And I find you concur with me in suspecting that they are foreign birds which visit us; & y^r reasons are good. You will be sure, I hope, not to omit to make enquiry whether y^r ring-ouzels have y^r rocks in autumn. What puzzles me most is, the very short stay they make with us: for in about three weeks they are all gone. I shall be very curious to remark whether they will call on us in their return in the spring, as they did last year.

Let me congratulate you on the correspondence that you have newly settled with your Languedoc Doctors; since you have always expressed an earnest desire of getting correspondents somewhere in the South of Europe. If these men are any thing of good Naturalists they may be sure to assist _^^you with their informations & observations with regard to migration; & especially that of the soft-billed birds². It is remarkable that you & Gouan should be both publishing Icthyology together.

I have also written to my South country correspondent at Gibraltar³, & urged him to take up the study of Nature a little; & to habituate his mind to attend to the migrations of birds & fishes; & to the plants, fossils, & insects of that part of the world⁴. I have also sent him y^r British Zoology that he may see what is going on at home: & my Brother has sent him Ray’s Synopsis avium & piscium, the Systema Naturæ, Ray’s Synop: animalium quadrup & c. As to birds, I fear that the concourse & din of a garrison will not prove very inviting to such timid animals: & long or frequent excursions into Andalusia may not be allowed of by the bigotted & narrow-minded Spaniards; nor be consisent with the strict & rigid discipline of a place at arms surrounded with a constant blockade of jealous enemies. However I could earnestly wish to see a well-executed Fauna from that part of the world.

It is matter of no small satisfaction to me to hear that you are so forward in your work, & that it is to appear in spring. I want to be better informed with regard to Icthyology. If fortune had settled me near the sea-side or near some great river, my natural propensity would soon haveurged me to have made myself acquainted with their productions: but as I have mostly lived in inland parts at a distance from great waters, my knowledge of fish extends little farther than to those common sorts, which our brooks & ponds produce.

P:S: Without doubt Mr: Barker’s insect is the Phalangium cancroides of Linnæus. One of my procurers saw a martin last Saturday (Nov^r: 26) in a sheltered bottom: the sun shone warm, & hew was hawking very briskly after flies. I am perfectly satisfyed that they do not all leave the kingdom during winter.

With the greatest esteem I remain, your obedient, & obliged Servant.

Gil: White

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Editorial notes

1. note that here White is grouping the Stone Curlew with the Plovers (Charadruis)
2. so far the identity of these 'Languadoc doctors' has not been verified
3. Rev John White
4. This is where we see White starting to bring John White into the naturalists conversation. With him being located in Gibraltar for sixteen years, John White had an excellent opportunity to study the wildlife of that region. By sending books, and encouraging letters, John was able to start to amass information, and specimens, to be sent to England for study by naturalists including Gilbert White and Thomas Pennant, but also Joseph Banks, Daines Barrington and others.