Dear Sir,
Your obliging letter of Feb:21: st came safe to this place, & followed me up to town; where I also received yr favour of March 1:st
While I was in London came from Gibraltar a box containing (besides several birds which you have seen before)
Ardea alba minorNo reference can be found, contemporary or historical to an Ardea alba minor. The Great White Egret is Ardea alba as denoted here, however, this might be a reference to the Little Egret, which is not recorded elsewhere: perhaps the 6 of Ray’s
synopsis avium
: Charadrius Alexandrinus. These are all the new birds.
In a bottle Sarus mæna? Salmo eperlanus calpensis:blennius supercilios: cancer aretosspecies cannot currently be determined.
In a phial Squali fætusfoetus: cancer aretos: labrus.
These are all left with my Bro: Tho: who will add them to the cargo I am sending up.
I also looked out the pratincola, which will be sent with the rest. There can be no doubt of it’s being a genus per se.
When I came home I found by the Leverpool frigate a box containing Phials.
Mustela lutra: N:o 1. Gasterost: ovatus?
Squallus glaucus: Zeus aper:
mustelus: Labrus: Sherea?
Uranoscopus scaber: 2. Esox Saurus.
Trigla volistans: & 3. Cancer Squilla carinata:
some birds seen before: Percae: Gobiino species has been able to be identified to this name. GBIF does include a Perca goboidies but this in itself is difficult to trace further..
all dryed. 4. Cancer squil: carin:
Trigla verticillata:
Perca
5. Trigla lucerna:
Trach: Draco.
You will also receive the outlines of the following fishes:
Squalus centrina: Sciæna? Borrico minorspecies unknown: Scomber
pelamis: Sciæna: Corbo: Esox Saurus: Gasterosteus
saltatrix: Lepidopus: Perca, vel Zeus? novus, capite
diaphano.
Among the rest I send you the short-eared owl of
Brit zool:
omitted before.
My thanks are due for yr thoughts on the former cargo.
Your
tour thro’ Scotland
appears to me to be a very engaging work: & the town, it is plain, is of the same opinion: for the book has a great run.
Some future summer you will, I hope, extend yr progress to the kingdom of Ireland; a country little known to Naturalists. You will not, we trust, undertake that tour without the assistance of a botanist; because the mountains have scarcely been sufficiently examined: & the southerly counties of so mild a climate may possibly afford some plants little to be expected within the British dominions. A person of yr turn of mind will draw many just remarks from the civil state & modern improvements of a country both in arts & agriculture, where premiums obtained long before they were heard of with us. The manners of the wild natives, their superstitions, their prejudices, their sordid way of life will extort from you many useful reflections. Nor must I pass over the castles & seats, the extensive & picturesque lakes, the lofty midland mountains, so little known, & so engaging to the reader when described in a lively manner. In a word you would have in such a work as this, as you had in yr last, a singular advantage as an author, from a double set of readers. For as every Scotchman will naturally wish to see what an English man shall say about his country: so every intelligent Irish man will read your book upon the same principle.
Pennant had already completed a tour of Ireland, however had taken only brief notes and this was not worked up into a full published tour
I regret that I was obliged to leave town before I had seen yr genera avium. Your
synopsis quadr
: gives me satisfaction.
When I came to London I found a long letter from Linnæus to my Bro: John lying in Fleetstreet occasioned by an epistle & some phials of insects sent by the latter to the former. The old arch-naturalist writes with spirit still; & is very open & communicative, acknowledging that several of the Insects were new to him. He languishes to see a pratincole being conscious that it belongs not to the genus of hirundo.
Please to order the fishes that are ascertained to be thrown away; & I mean those in spirits.
I am, Sir, your most obedient, & Humble servant,
Gil: White