Dear Sir,
If some of you curious Gentlemen would procure the head of a fallow deer, & would have it dissected I suspect you would find it furnished with two spiracular, besides those of the nostrils. When those animals are thirsty they plunge their noses very deep under water while they are drinking; & hold them in that situation for a considerable time. During this it is that I think they can open two vents one under each eye having a communication with the nose. If this should prove to be the case here seems to be an extraordinary provision of Nature worthy of farther enquiry; & unnoticed, as far as I am aware, by any Naturalist. For it seems that if both their mouth & nostrils were entirely stopped these quadrupeds would not be suffocated. Aristotle, I believe, says somewhere that Goats breathe out of their ears: but no one, that I remember, has remarked that deer can draw their breath as if corners of their eyes.White is referring to the scent glands which can be quite apparent on some species of deer. He is incorrect in his assertions that they can be used for breathing!
Your account of the Moose gives me a great deal of satisfaction; not only because I am glad to hear that two such animals, so little known, are arrived in this neighbourhood: but because in it you give me Hopes that I may have the Honour of yr Company at Selborne: & I earnestly desire that you will not disappoint me of that satisfaction. Tho’ the direct way to Goodwood from Town is down the Chichester road: yet if you will come the Alton, & so to Petersfield, there will be but a very few miles difference: & in yr way to Petersfield you will pass within three miles of my House; & my Horses shall meet you on the turnpike to carry you to this place.
LetterXI
in pencil Some intelligent country people have a notion that we have in these parts a species of yr Genus mustelinum besides the weasel, stoat, ferret, & polecat; a little reddish slender beast not much bigger that a field-mouse but longer, which they call a cane. But this is a piece of intelligence that (‘til after farther enquiry has been made) merits but little regard.
A Gent: in this neighbourhood had two milk-white rooks in one nest. A boy finding them before they were well fledged, threw them to the ground & destroyed them, to the regret of the owner, who would have been glad to have preserved such a curiosity in his rookery. I saw the birds myself nailed to the end of a barn (the country-man’s museum) & was surprized to find that their bills, legs, feet, & claws were white.
A shepherd saw a milk-white lark on a down above my House this winter.
I remember a cock-bull-finch in a cage which had been caught in the fields full feathered, & come to it’s true colours. In about a year it began to look dingy; & blackening every year became coal-black in four. It’s chief food was Hempseed.
For many years I have remarked that the root of the cuckowpint (Arum) was always scratched out of the dry banks of hedges by some animal, & eaten in severe snowy weather. After observing with some exactness myself, & getting others to do the same, we found it was the thrush kind that searched it out. The root of the Arum is remarkably warm, & pungent.
Our flocks of female chaffinches have not yet quite forsaken us.
The black birds & thrushes are very much thinned down by that severe weather in January.
In the middle of February I discovered in my tall Hedges a little bird that raised my Curiosity: it was of that yellow green colour that belongs to the Salicaria kind, & as far as I could see, was soft-billed. It was no Parus, & was too long & big for a golden-crowned wren appearing most like the grasshopper lark. It hung some times with it’s back downwards, never continuing one moment in the same place
willow wren Mr Tool. 266
in Thomas Pennant's hand. Unfortunately it has not been possible to confirm the identity of this person so far.. I shot at it: but it was so desultory that I missed my aim; which I the more regretted as I should have been glad to have seen a bird of that appearance so long before the return of birds of passage of that sort:
When yr sheets containing a list of the British birds, &c: come out, you will gratify me much by sending me one. I am glad to hear you intend to continue yr publications in the natural way. My Relation at Gibraltar
Gilbert White's brother John White
has never at all applied to these kind of studies, & has no books of that sort: else he might be helpful to you with regard to the birds of Barbary & Andalusia.
Pray give my humble respects to Mr: Banks, & tell him I shall not forget him next month with regard to the Lathræa squammaria. If he will do me the Honour to come & see me, he will soon find how many curious plants I am unacquainted with in my own Country. I request also that you will d to pay my Compliments & thanks to Mr: Barrington for the agreeable present of his
Journal
which I am filling-up day by day.
Buntings I saw in plenty last week.
Requesting that^
you will continue to honour me with the favour of yr Correspondence
I conclude, Sir,
Yr: most obedient Servant,
Gil: White.