Dear Sir,

Your obliging letter of July 24^th arrived last night: & I sit down this morning to answer it. I shall send you my little cargo of curiosities with a great deal of satisfaction. The birds are here at my house; but I will send them up to town to my Brother in Thames-street¹" who has got the fishes; & will desire him to send them all together down to Chester². If you should think proper to order your artists to take any of my animals I should be glad to see the drawings.

When you have ascertained the fishes, you will be pleased to give me an exact account of them. The birds will be labeled numerically 1:2:3: &c: so that you will be able to speak of them with precision. In particular I desire you would take good notice of the swallow.

It is a disappointment to have Gouan’s work turn-out so bad. The French, I think, in general are strangely prolix in their Nat:Hist: What Linn: says with respect to insects holds good in every other branch: “Verbositas presentis seculi calamitas artis³.”

Pray how do you approve of Scopoli’s new work? as I admire his Entomologia, I long to see that also: & yet Mr Barrington gave me but an indifferent account of it.

Neither puffins nor razor-bills breed, that I can find in Andalusia: they only winter there.

I forgot to mention in my last letter, & had not room to insert in the former, that the male-moose in ruttingtime swims from island to island in the lakes & rivers of N: America in pursut of the females. My friend the Chaplain saw one killed in the water as It was swimming on that errand in the River St: Laurence: it was a monstrous beast, he told me; but he did not take the dimensions.

When I was last in town our friend Mr: Barrington most obligingly carryed me to see many curious sights. As you were then writing to him about horns; he carryed me to see many strange & wonderful horns! There is, I find, at Ld Pembroke’s at Wilton an horn-room, furnished with more than 30 different pairs: but I have not seen that house lately.

Mr: Barrington shewed me many astonishing collections of stuffed & living birds from all quarters of the world. After I had studyed over the latter for a time I remarked that every species almost that came from distant regions, such as S: America, the coast of Guinea, &c: were thick-billed birds of the Loxia & Fringilla genera; & no motacillæ or muscicapæ were to be met with. When I came to consider, the reason was obvious enough: for the hard-billed birds subsist on seeds, which are easily carryed on board: while the soft-billed birds, which are supported by worms & insects, or what is a succedaneum⁴, for them fresh new meat, can meet with neither in long voyages. It is from this defect of food that our collections (curious as they are) are defective; & we are deprived of some of the most delicate, & lively genera⁵.

From repeated observation I find that the bank-martin is the first of the Swallow-genus in bringing-out it’s young. Young bank-martins were flyers this year (and very late are all productions this year both vegetable & animal) on July 13: but no young swallows appeared at all this year ‘til July 17. Bank-martins build their nests with the crested-dog-tail, & other fine grasses; & line them with goose-feathers. Their nests are strangely annoyed with fleas, the pulsa irritans. It is wonderful that these birds with their very soft & feeble bills & claws should be able to terobrate such deep holes in the stubborn sand-banks: & yet there is no doubt but that there latebræ are bored in the manner above mentioned. For on May 25 last I saw a pair of these birds at work in a shallow hole: & I saw the crumbling sand run down the side of the bank: & could distinguish what was fresh-worked by it’s colour from what had been bleached by lying in the sun.

Hoping for a continuance of y^r favours, & that you will indulge me with a long letter next time

P.s. I have no quilla lata⁶. Sweet weather: but there will be no harvesting til towards the end of the month. Hops promise well.

I remain, with great esteem, your obliged, & humble servant,

Gil: White

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Editorial notes

1. Thomas Holt-White
2. This is referring to the consignment of specimens from Gibraltar detailed in Document 20
3. Translation: Verbosity is the bane of art in the present century
4. a substitute"
5. This is an interesting, and not incorrect, conclusion from White. He is assuming not that these genera are absent from these locations by any form of potentially evolutionary perspective, but that they simply cannot be brought back live and therefore suitable for collection. It is an interesting point in that it demonstrates how unaware he is of the concept of real species differentiation by global location
6. I can find no direct species link to this with the exception of Squilla lata, a synonym of Lenisquilla lata (Brooks, 1886), a species of Mantis Shrimp from Australia.
7. Salute and signature are in Gilbert Whites hand