Dear Sir,

- - Your agreeable letter of Feb: 15: arrived while I was from home: & since my return some what still has prevented my sitting down to pay it that regard whichit deserved.

You may probably have heard by means of M^r Barington, who saw the contents while they lay in town, that I have received an other small cargo of birds from Gibraltar, with a curious collection of insects.

The birds were as follow:

Merops apiaster 3 specims: Rallus aquat:

Loxia curvirostera: Motacilla flava:

Scolopax agocephala M:&F: Ananthe.

- - - - - phæopus: Charadrius hiaticula:

Oriolus galbula 2 spec: Hematopus ostralegus:

Alauda cristata: Leg & wing of strix bubo:

Alauda - - - - - - ? 2 spec: Leg of ardea nycticorax:

coturinix tridact: mas: Turdys arundinaceus:

[??] ot: ananthe M:& F:

Where a wing or a leg or an head only are sent, you are to suppose that the whole specimen was too stale & too far gone to be preserved before it reached my Bro:^r’s hands. The Alauda unknown answers well in many respects to the Spipoletta Florenfinis of Ray: But as that most accurate writer says that the rostrum of the spipoletta is nigerrimum, & pedes etiam nigri¹; I must by no means pretend to say that my birds are the above-mentioned when their bills & legs are brown: & especially since all ornithonlogists agree that the naked parts of birds are the least apt to vary in colour.

As to the ananthe I don’t know at all what to make of it: it appears to me more like a variegated accidental specimen than a new species: but I shall hear what you have to say.

The outer edge of the first quill-feather of the wing of the strix bubo is serrated: a circumstance which Linn: seems not to be aware of; for if he had he would never have made specific to his strix aluco: since what is common to more than one species cannot be specific. But such slips are pardonable, nay unavoidable opere in longo².

As the orioli gall: are birds of last year their colour is by no means come to its full splendor.

My Bro^r3: has much to say in defence of his supposition that his Spanish & Barbary partridges are different species. In one of his last letters his words are, “I am perfectly clear about the difference of the Span: & Bar: partridge. I have examined multitudes of each, & never found the least exception in my remark - - - that they Bar: sort has always the chestnut collar, cheeks, & c spotted with white; the Span: sort always has those parts black, & the collar of a different form. The distinction is invariable; & I wonder no one remarked it. The Span: is rather the larger bird. Indeed on a careful comparison the whole disposition even of those colours which correspond in each bird, differs.

Thaw’s travels are to be met with in Gibraltar; & my Bro^r4 had discovered himself_^^that the tridactyl quail was known to the Dr in Barbary: however we are equally obliged to you for Y^r hint.

Gannets are never seen about Gibraltar ‘til Nov: they retire again about March. My Bro^r5 shall try to procure the bird for you from the Barbary coast.

I shall make a point of meeting you in town. It is time now to have a little conversation fact to face after we have corresponded so freely for several years.

It is matter of Joy to me to find that Mr Tunstal pursues natural knowledge with some earnestness. Zeal & an affluent fortune will avail much in such a concept I have been applied to procure him some particular birds this spring; & hope to have the pleasure of looking over his collection again when I get to town⁶.

My Bro^r7 makes great complain about the confusion that subsists between the spari & labri: & add that tho’ Brunnick pretends to improve on Linn: in his definitions & distinctions relative to those genera; yet he leaves him still puzzled.

Mr: Forster’s catalogue of British insects came safe. As this branch of the zoology is given up to this writer, I hope he will for his own credit, & for that of the work do his utmost to make his work_^^part compleat. As he is probably well qualified the undertaking, if were to be wished he would not rely too much on Dr Berkenhout or any other person; but would make use of his own eyes to be satifyed what insects subsist among us, & what do not. The Dr above mentioned_^^named mentions the myrmleon formiarium as one of our Insects: but Forster will I hope be convinced that we have it, & will tell us where, before he admits it. The genus of oestrus wants sadly to be better explained: & better proof wants to be brought that we have with us the species of bovis, hæmorrhoidalis, & ovis; & that they deposit their eggs respectively in the backs of kine⁸, the rectum of horses, & the nostrils of sheep. It appears to me much more probable that those eggs which are conveyed into the fundament of Horses are deposited there by the hippobosca equina (the side fly, with us the forest-fly) a crawling, clinging dipterous insect which spends its whole time about the groin & under the tails of horses: where as I never saw in my life an oestrus about the fundament of those animals.

There is an other oestrus, known in these parts to every plough boy, which because it is omitted by Linn: is passed over in silence by Berkenhout, & Forster, & that is the curvicauda of Mouffet mentioned by Derham in his physico-theol: p:250: an insect worthy of remark for depositing it’s eggs in so dextrous a manner on the hair of the legs, &c of grass-horses. But then Derham is mistaken when he advances that this œstrus is the parent of that wondrous star-tailed maggot which mentions afterwards: for latter writers have dis[c]overed that that singular production is derived from the egg of the musca chamæleon. see Geoffr:2:17:f: 4.

As far as I am a judge nothing would would recommend the work we are talking of more than some neat plates that should well express the generic distinctions of insects according to Linn: for I am well assured that many more people would study insects, could they set out with a more adequate notion of those distinctions than can be conveyed at first by words alone.

If you have a desire to see my last birds please to intimate as much: but as you intend soon to be in town, might they not as well meet you there & save a long carriage? but this shall be as you please.

I had written thus far when y^r letter of the 19 of Mar: arrived. Many thanks are due for y^r trouble in ascertaining so many of my Bro:^r's9 fishes, & for the honour you have done his birds in ordering so many of them to be taken.

I shall transcribe y^r list & set it off for Gibraltar next week My Bro^r:¹⁰ will be pleased to see how you have named his specimens. When you write to Gibr: croud y^r letter with hints: mine our of late in a very didactic stile. you have, I find, made some alteration in y^r time of coming: may I presume to ask as howlong you stay in town? Hoping to have the honour of seeing you soon

My thanks are due for y^r second part of the 4:^th vol:¹¹ which is just arrived.

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

Gil: White

ⁱ¹²

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Editorial notes

1. Translation: Very black, and his feet also black
2. Translation: work at length
3. John White
4. John White
5. John White
6. London
7. John White
8. cows
9. John White
10. John White
11. This will be volume four of British Zoology
12. This addition written in Thomas Pennant's handwritting