Dear Sir,

My unusual silence has not been owing to any disrespect, but to the roving, unsettled life which I have lived for this month past.

I wish you had happened to have paid a little more attention to the pair of larks which came over in my last collection; because they seemed to me to be quite a different species from any sent before: & I should not have hesitated to have called them the Spipoletta Florentinis Raii, had they had black feet & black bills. The variegated ananthe also deserved your regard. But I will endeavour to send both sorts again when I have an opportunity, that you may survey them at your leisure. My thanks are due for y^r setting us right where some birds were misnamed.

It is a great satisfaction to me to find that you & my Brother¹ at Gibraltar are embarked in a correspondence. You are capable of giving each other mutual entertainment: & my Bro:^r2 (as by much the youngest Naturalist) will derive from you much information, & many useful hints & queries. What from his natural propensity, & application, from the assistance of ingenious friends, & from the copious field of the South of Spain, which he has all to himself, I doubt not but that in time he will be able to produce somewhat worthy the attention of men who love these studies.

As to any publication in this way of my own, I look upon it with great diffidence, finding that I ought to have begun it twenty years ago. But if I was to attempt any thing, it should be somewhat of a Nat:history of my native parish; an annus historico-natralils, comprising a journal, for one whole year, & illustrated with large notes, & observations. Such a beginning might induce more able naturalists to write the history of various districts: & might in time occasion the production of a work so much to be wished for, a full & complete nat:history of these kingdoms.³

Your engraver at Chester acquits himself like an able artis⁴: & I should be glad to know what his price is for a plate containing two or three animals. You have, I see, furnished the Gent: Mag: for last month with a plate & some descriptions. The conduct:^r of that publication will, no doubt, rejoice in such a correspondent.

Having been on a visit lately where peacocks abounded, I could not help observing that the train of that magnificent bird appears by no means to be it’s tail; those long feathers growing not from it’s uropygium but all up it’s back. A range of short brown stiff feathers fixed in the uropygium is the real tail, & serves as a fulcrum to prop the train, when set an end. When the train is up, nothing appears of the bird before, but it’s head & neck: but this would not be the case were those long feathers only fixed in the rump. By a strong muscular vibration this fowl can make the shafts of it’s long feathers clatter like the swords of a sword-dancer; it then tramples very quick with it’s feet, & runs backward towards the females.

As you are a fossilist I should tell you that I have got an uncommon calculus ægogrophila⁵, taken out of the stomach of a fat ox: it is perfectly round & about the size of a large Seville orange: they are, I think, usually flat.

I have just read with satisfaction & improvment Kalm ’s journey thro’ N:America: but as he is continually referring to an other work he cuts us very short often times both in botany & zoology.

Yesterday I had a letter from town which mentions the safe return of Mr Banks; & adds that he looks as well as ever he did in his life. So agreeable an event calls for my warmest congratulations. For if we rejoice at the arrival of a friend who has been absent but a few months perhaps in a neighbouring kingdom: how shall we express ourselves when we see one restored as it were from the other world, after having undergone the astonishing hazards & dangers that must attend the circumnavigation of the world itself!!!

I have great reason to regret my disappointment of not meeting you in town: but as we live by hope I trust that I shall be more fortunate an other time.

With great esteem & remain your obliged, & most humble servant,

Gil: White

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Editorial notes

1. John White
2. John White
3. This is the first real reference to a potential publication by White, and has clearly been suggested here by Pennant. Daines Barrington has also suggested similar in his own correspondence, it may be that they are discussing Barrington's proposal, or that this is a separate suggestion by Pennant. Without the other half of the correspondence it is difficult to ascertain.
4. Presumably this is Moses Griffith
5. White is refering to a mineral concreation which is found within a gastrointestinal system