Dear Sir,

op Your kind & agreeable letter in answer to mine of Novemb^r: 28^th: came safe to hand, but without any date. Among the many correspondents that I stand indebted to for their pleasing communications, there are none whose epistles I sit down to answer with more satisfaction than your own.

op As to the peculiarity of y^r jack-daws building with us under the ground in rabbet-burrows, you have in part hit on the reason of it, without intending it. For in reality there are hardly ay towers or steeples in all this country. And perhaps, Norfolk excepted, Hants & Sussex are as meanly furnished with churches as almost any counties in the kingdom. We have many livings of 2, & 300^ae per ann: whose houses of worship make little better appearance than dove cotes.

op When I first saw Northtõnshire, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, & the fens of Lincolnshire, I was amazed at the number of spires which presented themselves in every point of view.

op As an admirer of prospects I have reason to lament this want in my own country: for such objects are very necessary ingredients in an elegant landscape.

op What you mention with respect to reclaimed toads raises my curiosity: but I must wait ‘til your work comes out.

op An ancient writer, tho’ no naturalist has well remarked, that “Every kind of beasts, & of birds, & of serpents, & things in the sea, is tamed, & that been tamed of mankind”¹.

op It is a satisfaction to me to find that a green lizard has actually been procured for you I Devõn; because it corroborates my discovery which I made many years ago of the same sort on a sunny sand-bank near Farnham. I am well acquainted with the South-hams of Devõn; & can suppose that district, from it’s southerly situation, & dry husky soil, to be a proper habitation for such animals in their best perfection.

op Since the ring-ouzels of your vast mountains do not forsake them against winter; we have the better foundation for our suspicions that those which visit our neighbourhood about Mich: are not English birds, but driven from the more northern parts of Europe by the frosts. And it will be worth your pains to endeavour to trace from whence they come; & to enquire why they make no longer stay.

op In your Letter of June 28th: 1768 I could but admire with how much frankness you acknowledged several mistakes in your zoology with respect to some birds of the Grallæ order². Candor is a very essential part of a Naturalist. And this accomplishment our great countryman Mr: Ray possessed in an eminent degree; & that rendered him so excellent. The great Northern explorer of Nature is not gifted with that grace in so ample a manner: & therefore, in that respect at least, is not so great a man. He is tenacious of his opinions, & knows not well how to retract. In his preface to his last edition of his tome of fossils, tho’ a certain consciousness that he may be in the wrong seems to hang about him; yet he persists to the last, & cries in an idle jingle of words, “Nomine sed non omine mutavi”³⁴. If a man was never to write on natural knowledge ‘til he knew everything he would never write at all: & therefore a readiness to acknowledge mistakes on due conviction is the only certain path to perfection.

op In your account of your error with regard to the two species of herons, you incidentally gave me great entertainment in y^r description of the heronry at Cressi-hall: which is a curiosity I never could manage to see. Fourscore nests of such a bird on one tree! is a rarity which I woul/d ride half as many miles to see. Pray be sure to tell me in your next whose seat Cressi-hall is; & near what town it lies. I have often through that those vast extents of fens have never been sufficiently explored. If half a dozen Gent: furnished with a good strength of water-spaniels were to beat them over for a week, they would certainly find new species.

op I often take up y^r zoology for an hour, & entertain myself with comparing your descriptions with those of the authors that have written on the same subject; & am pleased to find that my friend has thro’ the whole acquitted himself so much to advantage. your treatise in particular on migration I admire much; & think that if it is enlarged as more information comes in, it will contribute much to the advancement of natural knowledge. But there is a passage in the article Goatsucker, page 247, which you will pardon me for objecting to, as I always thought it exceptionable: & that is, “This noise being made only in it’s flight, we suppose it to be caused by the resistance of the air against the hollow of it’s vastly extended mouth & throat: for it flies with both open to take it’s prey”. Now as the first line appears to me to be a false fact; the supposition of course falls to the ground, if it should prove so. There is no bird, I believe, whose manners I have studied more than that of the Caprimulgus, both as it is a wonderful & curious animal in itself; & also on account of what is advanced n the sentence above. But I have always found that tho’ sometimes it may chatter as it flies, as I know it does; yet in general it tunes it’s jarring note sitting on a bough. And I have for many an halfhour watched it as it sat with it’s under jaw quivering, & particularly this summer. It sits usually on a bare bough with it’s head lower than it’s tail, in an attitude well expressed by y^r draughtsman in the Folio Brit: Zoology. This bird is most punctual in beginning it’s song exactly at the close of day: so exactly that I have known it strike-up more than once or twice just at the report of the Portsmouth evening gun, which we can just hear of a still evening. It appears to me that this bird forms it’s notes by organic impulse, by the powers of the parts of it’s wind-pipes formed for sound, just as other animals. You will credit me, I hope, when I assure you, that as my Neighbours were assembled in an hermitage on the side of a steep hill opposite to my house, where we drink tea, & c: one of these churn-owls came & settled on the cross of that little straw-edifice, & began to chatter; with wonder to feel that the organs of that poor little animal gave a sensible vibration to the whole building! This bird also sometimes “makes a small squeak, repeated four or five times”: & I have observed that to happen when the cock has been pursuing the hen in a toying way thro’ the boughs of a tree. You will, I trust, pardon the freedom I have taken; & will be so kind as to give me your sentiments in y^r next on what I have advanced.

op It would not be at all strange, if your bat which you have procured should prove a new one; since five species have been procured_^^found in a neighbouring kingdom. The great sort that I mentioned is certainly a nondescript: I saw but one this summer, & that I had not an opportunity of taking.

op Your account of the Indian-grass was entertaining. I am no angler myself; but enquiring of those that are, what they supposed that part of their tackle to be made of, they replyed of the intestines of a silkworm.

op And here I beg once for all that you would please to remember, that th’ I should not just immediately take notice of any curious matter which you may inform me of, you are not to suppose that I neglect it: for either I may wait for information, or may have somewhat to advance which I may think more necessary at that time.

op Tho’ I must not pretend to any great skill in Entomology; yet I cannot say that I am quite ignorant of that kind of knowledge. I may now & then perhaps be able to furnish you with a little Information.

op The vast rains ceased much about the same time as with you: & since we have had delicate weather. My Brother⁵ says in a late letter, that more has fallen this year, than in any he ever attended to: tho’ from July 1763 to Jan: 1764 more fe[ll] than in any seven months of this year.

op The nuthatch just begins to chatter: it chatters flying

Your obliged, & obedient Servant,

Gil: White

op

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Editorial notes

1. James 3:7 "For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind:" King James Bible
2. by this White is refering to the 'wading birds'
3. translation: I changed the name but not the omen
4. It is unclear at present who this 'great northern explorer of Nature' is. It may be Carl Linneaus>, to whom this character description would certainly fit, however Linneaus rarely wrote on fossils, tending to include them with minerals.
5. it is not clear which brother White is referring to here, however, from the subject and context this might be Thomas Holt-White