Dear Sir,

¹

A journey of business, which detained me longer from home than I expected, must be my excuse for neglecting to answer your letter ‘til this time.

My thanks are due for your obliging present of your last publication, which will conduced much to illustrate, & improve the British zόόlogy: the designs are just & the attitudes easy & natural; & the plates so well engraved, that they will convey a much more adequate Idea of an unknown animal to a young naturalist than words possibly can.

ⁱ² Tho’ you are embarked in a more intensive plan of natural history, yet I am glad to find that you do by no means give up the Brit:zόόlogy: that I think should be your principal object & I hope you will continue to revise it at your leisure, & to re touch it over ‘til you have render’d it as perfect as the nature of the work will admit of. If people that life in the country would take a little pains, daily observations might be made with respect to animals, & particularly regarding their life & conversation, their actions & oeconomy, which are the life & soul of natural history.

Every species of the swallow-kind take their drink by sipping the water as they skim lightly over the surface of it ------------ flumia libant Summa leves³ -------------- Virg: they never settle to drink like other birds.

Last month was such a series of cold & turbulent weather, such a constant succession of frost & snow, hail & tempest, that the regular migration of the summer birds of passage was much interrupted: some did not appear (at least were not heard) ‘till weeks after their usual time, as the black-cap,_^^& the white-throat; & some have not been heard yet, as the grass-hopper-lark, & regulus non cristatus major. As to the stoparola I have not yet seen it: it is indeed one of the latest of the summer birds; but it used to shew itself before this time. And yet amidst all this meteorous strife & rattle of the element two swallows appeared so long ago_&^as April 11th in frost & snow: but they withdrew again & were not visible for many days. House-martins were not seen til May came in.

Hedge-hogs make a deep & warm hybernaculum with leaves & moss, in which they lay themselves up: but I never could find that they laid in any winter-store.

As it looks somewhat like dissimulation, I shall not conceal from you any longer that I sometimes receive from Gibraltar communications in the natural way. And the reason I have not imparted them to you from time to time was, because my Brother⁴, from the time he was put on looking about him; conceived a design of drawing up somewhat of a natural history of those Southern parts of Europe⁵. The apes on the rock of Gibraltar have no tails.

On Michaelmass day 1768. I managed to get a sight of the female moose belonging to the Duke of Richmond: but was greatly disappointed when I arrived at the spot to find that it dyed (after having appeared in a languishing way for some time) on the morning before. However understanding it was not stripped I proceeded to examine this rare quadruped. I found it in a sort of an old green-house slung under the belly & chin by ropes, & in a standing posture: but ‘tho it had been dead for so short a time, it was in so putrid a state than the stench was hardly supportable. The grand distinction between this deer & any other species that I have have ever met with consisted in the strange length of it’s legs; on which it was tilted up much in the manner of the birds of the grallæ order. I measured it as they do an horse, & found_^^from that the ground to the wither it was just five feet & four inches: which height answers exactly to sixteen hands; a growth that few horses arrive at. But then with this length of legs it’s neck was remarkably short, no more than twelve inches: so that by straddling with one foot forward & the other backward it grazed on the plain ground with the greatest difficulty between it’s legs. The ears were vast and lopping, & was long as the neck. The head was about twenty inches long, & ass-like, & had such a redundancy of upper-lip as I never saw before, with huge nostrils. This lip, travellers say, is esteemed a great dainty in North America. It is very reasonable to suppose that this creature lives chiefly by the Brouze of trees, & by wading after water-plants; towards which way of livelihood the length of legs & great lip must contribute much. I have read some where that it delights in eating the Nymphæa, or water-lily. From the fore feet to the belly behind the shoulder it measured three feet & eight inches. The length of the legs before & behind consisted chiefly in the tibia, which was strangely long; but in my haste to get our of the stench I forgot to measure that joint exactly. It’s scut⁶ seem’d to be about an inch long. The fore-hoofs were upright & shapely, the hind flat & splayed. The colour was a grizzly black; the mane about four inches long. The spring before it was only two years old: so that most probably was not then come to it’s growth. What a vast tall beast must a full grown stag be! I have been told some arrive at ten feet & an half! This poor creature had at first a female companion of the same species, which dyed the spring before. In the garden with it was a young stag, or red deer, between whom it was hoped that there might have been a breed: but their inequality of height must have always been a bar to any commerce of the amourous kind. I should have been glad to have examined the teeth, tongue, lips, hoofs &c minutely; but the putrifaction precluded all farther curiosity. This animal, the keeper told me, seemed to enjoy itself best in the extreme frost of the former winter. In the house they shewed me the horn of a male-moose, which had no front-antlers, but only a broad palm with some snags on the edges. The noble owner of the dead moose proposed to make a skeleton of her bones.

Please to let me hear if my female moose corresponds with that you saw; &when you think still that the American moose & European Elk re the same creature.

The Caprimulgus has not been heard yet.⁷

I am, with the greatest esteem, your most humble servant

Gil: White

⁸

ⁱⁱ⁹

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Editorial notes

1. The core text section is written in the hand of an amenuensis, likely John (Jack) White, Gilbert White's nephew and son of Gilbert Whites Brother John White.
2. The X here is in pencil and may be a manuscript notation identifying a section for the publication of The Natural History of Selborne
3. Translation: The rivers flowed, the summer was light
4. John White
5. This would have been John White's 'Fauna Calpensis'. The book is known to have been completed to manuscript form, but due to disagreements between the White brothers, particularly John and Benjamin, over content and style it was never published. Unfortunately the manuscript is currently considered lost, with only the introduction remaining. Rashleigh Holt-White, Gilbert's great great nephew, asserts in his Life and Letters of Gilbert White (1901) that it was left behind in The Wakes at Selborne when the house was sold.
6. tail
7. This post script in Gilbert Whites hand
8. Salute and signature are in Gilbert Whites hand
9. This note in Thomas Pennant's hand