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The Natural History of Selborne
Gilbert White's Natural History of Selborne (1789) reveals a world of wonders in nature. Over a period of twenty years White describes in minute detail the behaviour of animals through the changing seasons in the rural Hampshire parish of Selborne. He notes everything from the habits of an eccentric tortoise to the mysteries of bird migration and animal reproduction, with the purpose of inspiring others to observe their own surroundings with the same pleasure and attention.
Written as a series of letters, White's book has all the immediacy and freshness of an exchange with friends, yet it is none the less crafted with compelling literary skill. His gossipy correspondence has delighted readers from Charles Darwin to Virginia Woolf, and it has been read as a nostalgic evocation of a pastoral vision, a model for local studies of plants and animals, and a precursor to modern ecology. This new edition includes contemporary illustrations and an introduction setting the work in its eighteenth-century context, as well as an appendix tracking the remarkable range of responses to the work over the last two hundred years.
Written as a series of letters, White's book has all the immediacy and freshness of an exchange with friends, yet it is none the less crafted with compelling literary skill. His gossipy correspondence has delighted readers from Charles Darwin to Virginia Woolf, and it has been read as a nostalgic evocation of a pastoral vision, a model for local studies of plants and animals, and a precursor to modern ecology. This new edition includes contemporary illustrations and an introduction setting the work in its eighteenth-century context, as well as an appendix tracking the remarkable range of responses to the work over the last two hundred years.
316 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 1788
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1898 people want to read
About the author
Gilbert White
231 books12 followersGilbert White was a "parson-naturalist", a pioneering English naturalist and ornithologist. More than any other writer, Gilbert White has shaped the relationship between man and nature. A hundred years before Darwin, White realised the crucial role of worms in the formation of soil and understood the significance of territory and song in birds. His precise, scrupulously honest and unaffectedly witty observations led him to interpret animals' behaviour in a unique manner. He is best known for his Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne, and remained unmarried and a curate all his life.
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August 31, 2021Historical interest, mainly: the best-selling observations of a parson on the natural world of his parish. Fascinating to see how science worked back in the day, with amateurs observing, theorising and communicating.
Somewhat jarring at points as White was one of those naturalists who basically went: oh, what a lovely creature, I'd better kill it for my collection.
My ebook (Penguin edition) is an absolute disgrace: the text seems to have been optically converted from print and is absolutely rammed with errors to the point of sentences becoming near-indecipherable. The shame of this being sold as a Penguin Classic. Where are the standards?
Somewhat jarring at points as White was one of those naturalists who basically went: oh, what a lovely creature, I'd better kill it for my collection.
My ebook (Penguin edition) is an absolute disgrace: the text seems to have been optically converted from print and is absolutely rammed with errors to the point of sentences becoming near-indecipherable. The shame of this being sold as a Penguin Classic. Where are the standards?
December 2, 2021
Gilbert White's classic, best in an illustrated edition like Century (1988), can be read like the Bible, a few paragraphs a day to muse on. Or one sentence: "The language of birds is very ancient and like other ancient modes of speech, very elliptical; little is said, but much is meant and understood."
I read White's Selborne, and mused on it so, while traveling in Dorset and writing my Birdtalk (2003). GW takes you into another world, the world where quotidian life--the appearance of migratory birds, the Tortoise Timothy in the root garden--was prized, not avoided by iphones and fast transport and vague urgencies.
White's detailed observations beg reading more than a sentence, as in his letter of April 18, 1768, begining with Stone Curlews, laying two eggs on ground [without even a Woodcock's nest--AP], so "a countryman, stirring his fallows, often destroys them. The young run immediately from the eggs like partridges, and are withdrawn to some flinty field by their dam, where they skulk among the stones, which are their best security; for their feathers are so exactly the colour of our grey spotted flints...Any evening you may hear them about the village, for they make a clamour that may be heard a mile"(p.52, 1988). Editor Richrd Mabey notes that White was the first to distinguish the three leaf-warblers common to Britain, "chiefly by close and careful observation of their songs*": the smallest a "chirper," is our chiffchaff, the 'middle willow-wren' is our willow warbler, with a "joyous, easy, laughing note" the largest with its grasshopper-like noise our wood warbler (marginal note p.52).
Jane Austen's house in Chawton is not far from Selborne, and her clerical father knew White, a nearby fellow cleric. Two international literary geniuses around the rural corner, maybe at a university, but here, the woman not even a college grad--roughly comparable to Emily Dickinson, both with small writing tables. Dickinson had the advantage of public lectures at Amherst College, and Austen the benefit of her educated brothers, but both rural geniuses.
White is the Thoreau of England, a solitary observer of the first rank. But unlike Thoreau the cantankerous Romantic recluse and tax-refuser, White was a sociable minister, an Eighteenth-Century man. Both Thoreau and White write with inimitable precision and joy at discovery. Both were transcendental, White in the traditionsl Christian manner. The Solomon of Canticles revived in Selbourne and at Walden.
* I heard the chiffchaff in Kensington Garden, London, and willow warblers too, but mostly after publishing my BirdTalk. Heard Stone-curlews, too down near the Dorset coast, but they sound like the rising part of a gull's cry, a little thinner.
I read White's Selborne, and mused on it so, while traveling in Dorset and writing my Birdtalk (2003). GW takes you into another world, the world where quotidian life--the appearance of migratory birds, the Tortoise Timothy in the root garden--was prized, not avoided by iphones and fast transport and vague urgencies.
White's detailed observations beg reading more than a sentence, as in his letter of April 18, 1768, begining with Stone Curlews, laying two eggs on ground [without even a Woodcock's nest--AP], so "a countryman, stirring his fallows, often destroys them. The young run immediately from the eggs like partridges, and are withdrawn to some flinty field by their dam, where they skulk among the stones, which are their best security; for their feathers are so exactly the colour of our grey spotted flints...Any evening you may hear them about the village, for they make a clamour that may be heard a mile"(p.52, 1988). Editor Richrd Mabey notes that White was the first to distinguish the three leaf-warblers common to Britain, "chiefly by close and careful observation of their songs*": the smallest a "chirper," is our chiffchaff, the 'middle willow-wren' is our willow warbler, with a "joyous, easy, laughing note" the largest with its grasshopper-like noise our wood warbler (marginal note p.52).
Jane Austen's house in Chawton is not far from Selborne, and her clerical father knew White, a nearby fellow cleric. Two international literary geniuses around the rural corner, maybe at a university, but here, the woman not even a college grad--roughly comparable to Emily Dickinson, both with small writing tables. Dickinson had the advantage of public lectures at Amherst College, and Austen the benefit of her educated brothers, but both rural geniuses.
White is the Thoreau of England, a solitary observer of the first rank. But unlike Thoreau the cantankerous Romantic recluse and tax-refuser, White was a sociable minister, an Eighteenth-Century man. Both Thoreau and White write with inimitable precision and joy at discovery. Both were transcendental, White in the traditionsl Christian manner. The Solomon of Canticles revived in Selbourne and at Walden.
* I heard the chiffchaff in Kensington Garden, London, and willow warblers too, but mostly after publishing my BirdTalk. Heard Stone-curlews, too down near the Dorset coast, but they sound like the rising part of a gull's cry, a little thinner.
April 10, 2024
Whether it was me or the book's author (who does seem to get more progressively into the swing of things, allowing his philosophical reflections greater rein as these letters accrue over the years betwixt 1769 and 1787), it took me an unusually long time to get into the rhythm with this one. As late as about page 100 or so I was going "most boring book ever" in my head (through much fault of my own, not knowing very many bird species of my own country let alone of these sceptered isles that Squire White goes on and on about in this epistolary journal of his)…Yet eventually I did come round, worried less and less about the genera-and-species, and surrendered to the author's splendid cadences…
Having been a (quite) amateur Hopkins afficionado, I was most attentive to what that poet called "inscape" and which this one, true to his time, calls Physico-theology, as everywhere he is looking for (and assuming, and therefore finding) evidence of the Hand of Creation in his micro-surveying of his country just on the northwest boundary of the South Downs (SE of Oxford, SW of London): here the Natural Order (hierarchic harmony and mysterious purpose) are forever-poised in a delicately balanced, graceful terpsichore, a seasonal, sempiternal, orbital procession of that Great Chain of Being (over which the Dove broods with the maternal care White sees shot through all of nature, as it "sublimes the passions, quickens the invention, and sharpens the sagacity of the brute creation")
In this, it is the Cuckoo bird's actions which are most troubling and portentous, as the cuckoo lacks that motherly instinct, it seemeth: for she rather opportunistically drops her own eggs into the nests of other birds, "a monstrous outrage" at first, which White does manage to incorporate into his System, unlike the murder of infants by mother pigs, dogs and cats.
But if Nature is an occasionally monstrous Mother, She is nevertheless a "great economist" in that She "converts the recreation of one animal to the support of another!"
Having been a (quite) amateur Hopkins afficionado, I was most attentive to what that poet called "inscape" and which this one, true to his time, calls Physico-theology, as everywhere he is looking for (and assuming, and therefore finding) evidence of the Hand of Creation in his micro-surveying of his country just on the northwest boundary of the South Downs (SE of Oxford, SW of London): here the Natural Order (hierarchic harmony and mysterious purpose) are forever-poised in a delicately balanced, graceful terpsichore, a seasonal, sempiternal, orbital procession of that Great Chain of Being (over which the Dove broods with the maternal care White sees shot through all of nature, as it "sublimes the passions, quickens the invention, and sharpens the sagacity of the brute creation")
Amusive birds!—say where your hid retreat
When the frost rages and the tempests beat;
Whence your return, by such nice instinct led,
When spring, soft season, lifts her bloomy head?
Such baffled searches mock man’s prying pride,
The GOD of NATURE is your secret guide!
In this, it is the Cuckoo bird's actions which are most troubling and portentous, as the cuckoo lacks that motherly instinct, it seemeth: for she rather opportunistically drops her own eggs into the nests of other birds, "a monstrous outrage" at first, which White does manage to incorporate into his System, unlike the murder of infants by mother pigs, dogs and cats.
But if Nature is an occasionally monstrous Mother, She is nevertheless a "great economist" in that She "converts the recreation of one animal to the support of another!"
A circumstance respecting these ponds, though by no means peculiar to them, I cannot pass over in silence; and that is, that instinct by which in summer all the kine, whether oxen, cows, calves, or heifers, retire constantly to the water during the hotter hours; where, being more exempt from flies, and inhaling the coolness of that element, some belly deep, and some only to mid-leg, they ruminate and solace themselves from about ten in the morning till four in the afternoon, and then return to their feeding. During this great proportion of the day they drop much dung, in which insects nestle; and so supply food for the fish, which would be poorly subsisted but from this contingency.White is particularly bemused by a tortoise which is kept by a fellow noble upon his estate, which, as it begins building its "hibernaculum" in November,
crapes out the ground with its fore-feet, and throws it up over its back with its hind; but the motion of its legs is ridiculously slow, little exceeding the hour-hand of a clock; and suitable to the composure of an animal said to be a whole month in performing one feat of copulation*.[*which elsewhere is variously termed "commerce" and "the business of generation"!]
Nothing can be more assiduous than this creature night and day in scooping the earth, and forcing its great body into the cavity; but, as the noons of that season proved unusually warm and sunny, it was continually interrupted, and called forth by the heat in the middle of the day; and though I continued there till the thirteenth of November, yet the work remained unfinished.He senses a certain "sagacity" in the brute, however, which is common in these pages (e.g. "Thus is instinct a most wonderful unequal faculty; in some instances so much above reason, in other respects so far below it!"), as White takes pains not to underestimate the intelligence of the creatures he studies even as he anthropomorphises them no less than we dog and cat lovers do:
"I was much taken with its sagacity in discerning those that do it kind offices: for, as soon as the good old lady* comes in sight who has waited on it for more than thirty years, it hobbles towards its benefactress with aukward alacrity; but remains inattentive to strangers. Thus not only ‘the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib,’ but the most abject reptile and torpid of beings distinguishes the hand that feeds it, and is touched with the feelings of gratitude!Such warm affections do not necessarily require human presence, however: White later describes a friendship between a horse and a chicken with the dewy-eyed sentiment of one raised under the wing of the 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury's "benevolence" or fellow-feeling, something far more appropriate to the Nature of England's green-and-pleasant-land than the Hobbesian red-in-tooth-and-claw:
Even great disparity of kind and size does not always prevent social advances and mutual fellowship. For a very intelligent and observant person has assured me that, in the former part of his life, keeping but one horse, he happened also on a time to have but one solitary hen. These two incongruous animals spent much of their time together in a lonely orchard, where they saw no creature but each other. By degrees an apparent regard began to take place between these two sequestered individuals. The fowl would approach the quadruped with notes of complacency, rubbing herself gently against his legs: while the horse would look down with satisfaction, and move with the greatest caution and circumspection, lest he should trample on his dimunitive companion. Thus, by mutual good offices, each seemed to console the vacant hours of the other: so that Milton, when he puts the following sentiment in the mouth of Adam, seems to be somewhat mistaken:If that thinking being, homo sapiens, though, is not quite always given such a wide, latitudinarian grin ("Gypsies" do seem to "infest" the countryside, and the "very poor" are "very poor" Chiefly on account of their being "the worst oeconomists"), there nevertheless have been a few signs of progress in the human sphere as well:
Much less can bird with beast, or fish with fowl,
So well converse, nor with the ox the ape.
The plenty of good wheaten bread that now is found among all ranks of people in the south, instead of that miserable sort which used in old days to be made of barley or beans, may contribute not a little to the sweetening their blood and correcting their juices; for the inhabitants of mountainous districts, to this day, are still liable to the itch and other cutaneous disorders, from a wretchedness and poverty of diet.This is as it should be as Britain unconsciously girds itself for the nascent industrial revolution in the north of the country…long may she live in this bucolic twilight in these, more southern, somewhat sunnier climes! Methinks 'tis time to go put the (endearing, occasionally cloysome) several seasons of Elizabeth Gaskell's pastoral Cranford on perma-rotation on the DVD…where rumours of an approaching Iron Horse are but apocryphal, gossip spread upon the winds by the overheated brainsickly denizens of the district.
As to the produce of a garden, every middle-aged person of observation may perceive, within his own memory, both town and country, how vastly the consumption of vegetables is increased. Green-stalls in cities now support multitudes in a comfortable state, while gardeners get fortunes. Every decent labourer also has his garden, which is half his support, as well as his delight; and common farmers provide plenty of beans, peas, and greens, for their hinds* to eat with their bacon; and those few that do not are despised for their sordid parsimony, and looked upon as regardless of the welfare of their dependants.
June 6, 2019
Wonderfully bonkers from start to finish!
Of course, The Natural History of Selborne is a nature classic. And yes it is, for its attention to minute observations of Nature and its creation of a new approach to study. But it can also be read as a sort of autobiography of White himself. And on this level it becomes a hooting owl of a book. White is wonderfully pompous and righteous, patriarchal and misogynistic, all you would expect an C18 Divine to be. The parson-naturalist has a fallen approach to the Creation-- shoot it and eat it. One short passage paraphrases as: saw a rare bird, didn't know what it was, shot at it, missed it, because the little sod kept jumping up and down. White's investigation into sound, the search for a "polyglot" Echo in a hollow vale, is pure mock-heroic-- though it is meant to be deadly serious, of course. Parts are as funny as Sterne. Nothing like a man on his hobby horse to create humour amidst Creation.
The Natural History of Selborne fills a void between the Augustans and the Romantics, a vacancy which White fills admirably with inspiration and wind.
Of course, The Natural History of Selborne is a nature classic. And yes it is, for its attention to minute observations of Nature and its creation of a new approach to study. But it can also be read as a sort of autobiography of White himself. And on this level it becomes a hooting owl of a book. White is wonderfully pompous and righteous, patriarchal and misogynistic, all you would expect an C18 Divine to be. The parson-naturalist has a fallen approach to the Creation-- shoot it and eat it. One short passage paraphrases as: saw a rare bird, didn't know what it was, shot at it, missed it, because the little sod kept jumping up and down. White's investigation into sound, the search for a "polyglot" Echo in a hollow vale, is pure mock-heroic-- though it is meant to be deadly serious, of course. Parts are as funny as Sterne. Nothing like a man on his hobby horse to create humour amidst Creation.
The Natural History of Selborne fills a void between the Augustans and the Romantics, a vacancy which White fills admirably with inspiration and wind.
February 5, 2025
Being part of the world doesn't only come from the news.
My favorite read of 2024, Timothy; or, Notes of an Abject Reptile by Verlyn Klinkenborg, introduced me to this classic. I've spent the last few days listening, a section or two per day, to 18th century Gilbert White's gentle, soothing voice.
Well, no, it wasn't White's voice, but I can't imagine that the man himself could have narrated his own letters with any more conviction, curiosity, and calm pleasantness than did Peter Yearsley at Librivox.*
Yearsley even read White's Latin additions. That was a treat as I've never had the opportunity to hear Latin spoken. Yearsley then translated it into English with a "Reader's Note." How kind!
In my 1977 Penguin paperback (I sometimes listened, I sometimes read, the paperback has a map, besides) there was an introduction by the inimitable Richard Mabey. Yet another perfect addition to the circle of White's hodgepodge of twenty first century friends. Klinkenborg, Yearsley, Mabey, and me!
White observed all variety of living things in his native Selborne, recorded the weather, bird migrations, villagers observations, and also posed many scientific questions with his pure delighted curiosity. Meanwhile as he tended to his little world, the wider world of man was ever spinning its politics, its chaos, its commerce, its crimes, and even a maniacal revolution.
But here was one man for decades recorded the weather, closely observed living things like crickets, swallows, eels, and turnip crops, and in doing so created for the first time what is now the modern naturalist.
As I listened, I was reminded of long New Mexico car trips as a kid. My parents in the front seat, me and my brothers in the back seat, mellowed by Mom and Dad's soft voices discussing mundane windshield observations, things that we kids only half-heard.
We understood the meaning, though, it was "these small things are important to us."
Highly recommend if you, contrary to the news, need to remember the importance of small, good things.
*https://librivox.org/the-natural-hist...
My favorite read of 2024, Timothy; or, Notes of an Abject Reptile by Verlyn Klinkenborg, introduced me to this classic. I've spent the last few days listening, a section or two per day, to 18th century Gilbert White's gentle, soothing voice.
Well, no, it wasn't White's voice, but I can't imagine that the man himself could have narrated his own letters with any more conviction, curiosity, and calm pleasantness than did Peter Yearsley at Librivox.*
Yearsley even read White's Latin additions. That was a treat as I've never had the opportunity to hear Latin spoken. Yearsley then translated it into English with a "Reader's Note." How kind!
In my 1977 Penguin paperback (I sometimes listened, I sometimes read, the paperback has a map, besides) there was an introduction by the inimitable Richard Mabey. Yet another perfect addition to the circle of White's hodgepodge of twenty first century friends. Klinkenborg, Yearsley, Mabey, and me!
White observed all variety of living things in his native Selborne, recorded the weather, bird migrations, villagers observations, and also posed many scientific questions with his pure delighted curiosity. Meanwhile as he tended to his little world, the wider world of man was ever spinning its politics, its chaos, its commerce, its crimes, and even a maniacal revolution.
But here was one man for decades recorded the weather, closely observed living things like crickets, swallows, eels, and turnip crops, and in doing so created for the first time what is now the modern naturalist.
As I listened, I was reminded of long New Mexico car trips as a kid. My parents in the front seat, me and my brothers in the back seat, mellowed by Mom and Dad's soft voices discussing mundane windshield observations, things that we kids only half-heard.
We understood the meaning, though, it was "these small things are important to us."
Highly recommend if you, contrary to the news, need to remember the importance of small, good things.
*https://librivox.org/the-natural-hist...
June 4, 2022
This book is a series of letters written by Gilbert White (1720-1793) about the natural world within his parish in England. As he got coach sick (I had never even considered that to be a thing before reading this), he didn’t leave home much and developed an in-depth interest in nature by his home. The letters cover slightly information about the local area, village and way of life but far more on animals, birds and insects and theories surrounding them.
Considering this was 100 years before Darwin and of course way before the ease of internet and research methods we have today the theories and ideas are both fascinating and remarkable. You realise reading this how far we have come in our understanding and scientific discoveries yet also how much we’ve lost in terms of every day observation (I suspect there is a link between the two that now we know things and can explain them they’re less interesting and taken for granted). The other large realisation reading this book is that we really have lost a lot of bird life both in numbers of species and population of each species. While naturalists of Whites day probably killing them wouldn’t have helped it is an eye opener still on how much we are losing and could still lose further.
A worth while read for people either interested in nature or the idea of research itself.
Considering this was 100 years before Darwin and of course way before the ease of internet and research methods we have today the theories and ideas are both fascinating and remarkable. You realise reading this how far we have come in our understanding and scientific discoveries yet also how much we’ve lost in terms of every day observation (I suspect there is a link between the two that now we know things and can explain them they’re less interesting and taken for granted). The other large realisation reading this book is that we really have lost a lot of bird life both in numbers of species and population of each species. While naturalists of Whites day probably killing them wouldn’t have helped it is an eye opener still on how much we are losing and could still lose further.
A worth while read for people either interested in nature or the idea of research itself.
August 15, 2021
Charming, interesting, but rather dry. It's local for me, so useful.
May 28, 2022
4.5 stars
Here is a series of letters that Gilbert White wrote in the late 18th century about his observations of the
fauna and flora of his native parish in Selborne, Hampshire. His correspondence was with two naturalists. The colour illustrations really helped bring the book alive. I most enjoyed the sections on the more unusual animals such as the moose, genus mustelinum ( a little reddish beast no bigger than a field mouse) & tortoise.
This is a must book for nature lovers.
Here is a series of letters that Gilbert White wrote in the late 18th century about his observations of the
fauna and flora of his native parish in Selborne, Hampshire. His correspondence was with two naturalists. The colour illustrations really helped bring the book alive. I most enjoyed the sections on the more unusual animals such as the moose, genus mustelinum ( a little reddish beast no bigger than a field mouse) & tortoise.
This is a must book for nature lovers.
January 6, 2021
The Natural History of Selborne is one of those classics I’ve always meant to read and never have, till an enforced stretch of idleness has induced me to turn to long-deferred projects (The Vicar of Wakefield is next). Selborne is not far from a place I am writing about, so this book could be seen as research.
Gilbert White, an eighteenth-century clergyman, turned his back on his benefice to settle in the village of his birth, Selborne in Sussex. He was an avid observer of natural phenomena from snowstorms to insects, but at heart he was what he calls a “faunist,” a studier of animals, especially birds. His natural history takes the form of a series of letters written to two naturalists more eminent than he, with whom he shared his observations and speculations about the wonders of creation. We don’t see their replies except occasionally elliptically, in White’s occasional responses to their pushback against some of his ideas.
The late eighteenth century was an interesting period in the history of science. In the past scientific thought had relied heavily on text, especially classical texts, and tradition, but was moving in the direction of firsthand observation. White is an observer by disposition but feels compelled to consult texts when interpreting what he has observed, with mixed results. One of his favorite topics of speculation is whether swallows migrate to southerly climes in the fall or hibernate in situ. He talks himself into migration, then talks himself back out of it again, the evidence of his eyes torn between field observation and reading of centuries-old sources. It was interesting to see this conflict play out in real time, as it were, a battle eloquent of the lure and peril of received ideas.
The letters are sometimes charming and sometimes self-conscious, eloquent and banal, enlightening and repetitive. The epistolary approach seems like a curious choice instead of a straightforward narrative; but this collection was assembled late in White’s life, and perhaps with such copious materials at hand he was daunted by the effort of composing from scratch. In any case, his Natural History opens a vivid window on a bygone world, not just the natural world but also that of its human inhabitants, and its charms outweigh its faults.
Gilbert White, an eighteenth-century clergyman, turned his back on his benefice to settle in the village of his birth, Selborne in Sussex. He was an avid observer of natural phenomena from snowstorms to insects, but at heart he was what he calls a “faunist,” a studier of animals, especially birds. His natural history takes the form of a series of letters written to two naturalists more eminent than he, with whom he shared his observations and speculations about the wonders of creation. We don’t see their replies except occasionally elliptically, in White’s occasional responses to their pushback against some of his ideas.
The late eighteenth century was an interesting period in the history of science. In the past scientific thought had relied heavily on text, especially classical texts, and tradition, but was moving in the direction of firsthand observation. White is an observer by disposition but feels compelled to consult texts when interpreting what he has observed, with mixed results. One of his favorite topics of speculation is whether swallows migrate to southerly climes in the fall or hibernate in situ. He talks himself into migration, then talks himself back out of it again, the evidence of his eyes torn between field observation and reading of centuries-old sources. It was interesting to see this conflict play out in real time, as it were, a battle eloquent of the lure and peril of received ideas.
The letters are sometimes charming and sometimes self-conscious, eloquent and banal, enlightening and repetitive. The epistolary approach seems like a curious choice instead of a straightforward narrative; but this collection was assembled late in White’s life, and perhaps with such copious materials at hand he was daunted by the effort of composing from scratch. In any case, his Natural History opens a vivid window on a bygone world, not just the natural world but also that of its human inhabitants, and its charms outweigh its faults.
January 22, 2009
This is one of the great books on biology that changed the world. Reading this today gives a perspective on how far we have come from believing the swallows hibernated in the mud. The world is both better understood and more fascinating for the discoveries of men like White. His writing is based on observation of the minute details that slowly fill in. His ability to see and annotate does more that recount he takes intuitive leaps to understanding animal behavior despite what others of renown have published. White collects real data and makes his own inferences.
White is the pioneer of British ecology writing, just as Aldo Leopold is the first author writing about American ecology. Since White's book has been continuously in print since 1789 and is one of the most well read books in Britain it has had a greater impact on their culture than Leopold's book on American ecology. But then the British tend to remain closer to their gardens than Americans.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_...
http://books.google.com/books?id=9JPv...
White is the pioneer of British ecology writing, just as Aldo Leopold is the first author writing about American ecology. Since White's book has been continuously in print since 1789 and is one of the most well read books in Britain it has had a greater impact on their culture than Leopold's book on American ecology. But then the British tend to remain closer to their gardens than Americans.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_...
http://books.google.com/books?id=9JPv...
June 23, 2017
If you are a flora and fauna lover, or if you like reading natural history books, this is a pretty good read. I would, however, recommend reading it in little chunks, because the detailed descriptions get a bit much if you have to read this, like I did, in three days time. I would have liked to savor the places with incredible descriptions of the Selborne area.
There are detailed descriptions of dissected animals in the book. A whole lot of animals die in the pursuit of mapping out anatomical differences. So if that's a deal breaker for you, maybe skip this one. And because this is written in the Georgian/Victorian eras, White has some outdated viewpoints. I actually found it interesting to see the moments when White found something in nature that didn't accord with his ideas about the "natural" order of things. He loses his objective tone in those moments, so you can tell he found some aspects of the natural world upsetting.
All in all, this is a great coffee table book; you can easily read a single letter (did I mention the book is a series of letters?) in a spare moment and slowly work you way through.
There are detailed descriptions of dissected animals in the book. A whole lot of animals die in the pursuit of mapping out anatomical differences. So if that's a deal breaker for you, maybe skip this one. And because this is written in the Georgian/Victorian eras, White has some outdated viewpoints. I actually found it interesting to see the moments when White found something in nature that didn't accord with his ideas about the "natural" order of things. He loses his objective tone in those moments, so you can tell he found some aspects of the natural world upsetting.
All in all, this is a great coffee table book; you can easily read a single letter (did I mention the book is a series of letters?) in a spare moment and slowly work you way through.
Want to read
January 10, 2021This is such a gorgeous book. The illustrations are sublime and the text makes me smile. But there is a downside to owning gorgeous oversized books (this being the Folio Society edition), which is that you need to treat them with care, and reading becomes a bit more involved, with the need to have a support for the book (too large to hold in ones hands, or mine anyway) & the turning of each page requiring careful manipulation. I'm spending too much time online and not enough sitting quietly with books. Putting this one back on the "shelf" for now, having read 40% of it and stalled. It'll be there when I'm in the mood again.
January 14, 2021
I don't know if I wasn't in the right mood/frame of mind for this book, but I found the constant listing of things a little tedious. It was like reading a version of "I went to market and I saw ......"
Whilst White's observational skills are clearly second to none, his "presenting minutiae as interesting" skills need some work!
I skimmed through some sections of this and then gave up completely. Maybe I'll come back to it one day, who knows?!!
Whilst White's observational skills are clearly second to none, his "presenting minutiae as interesting" skills need some work!
I skimmed through some sections of this and then gave up completely. Maybe I'll come back to it one day, who knows?!!
October 5, 2016
When I first heard of
The Natural History of Selborne
, so many years ago now that I can't even remember how, I thought it was a journal consisting, more or less, of lists and observations. I put it down as an intellectual curio and figured I'd probably never read it.
It kept thrusting itself back into my cultural and scientific awareness over the years though, until eventually I thought I really ought to read it. More than that, to acquire a copy this historically significant natural history volume. I'm glad I did.
As might be expected of a book from the eighteenth century, the scientific theories contained in the volume are, more often than not, wrong. There's no getting around that. Gilbert White still believed, for example, in the Mediaeval theory that hirundines hibernated - if not underwater then at least overwintering in the banks of rivers and lakes. His reluctance to accept that this was not the case is evidenced by repeated doubts expressed over whether all of those birds in Britain could really migrate to Africa, even as he begins to accept the growing evidence at the time that some might. It's a book written at a paradigm shifting moment in science then, just as Carl Linnaeus was establishing modern taxonomy but before Charles Darwin, Charles Lyell and Alfred Russel Wallace had displaced Pliny the Elder as THE authority on the natural world.
Where it's gained it's reputation over the centuries though is that it is a book that was written. It's not a journal, as I had first thought, and nor does it contain that many lists (although it does have some). White presents his volume in the form of a collection of letters - a device that many readers will instantly be familiar with. There seems to be some doubt as to how genuine these letters are - some were clearly written long after the fact and others may have been embellished when the idea to publish became entrenched. What's striking is the language that White uses to describe his observations, which are often strikingly clear. It's the quality of the writing, as well as of the observations, that have ensured this book's status as a classic of Natural History writing.
It kept thrusting itself back into my cultural and scientific awareness over the years though, until eventually I thought I really ought to read it. More than that, to acquire a copy this historically significant natural history volume. I'm glad I did.
As might be expected of a book from the eighteenth century, the scientific theories contained in the volume are, more often than not, wrong. There's no getting around that. Gilbert White still believed, for example, in the Mediaeval theory that hirundines hibernated - if not underwater then at least overwintering in the banks of rivers and lakes. His reluctance to accept that this was not the case is evidenced by repeated doubts expressed over whether all of those birds in Britain could really migrate to Africa, even as he begins to accept the growing evidence at the time that some might. It's a book written at a paradigm shifting moment in science then, just as Carl Linnaeus was establishing modern taxonomy but before Charles Darwin, Charles Lyell and Alfred Russel Wallace had displaced Pliny the Elder as THE authority on the natural world.
Where it's gained it's reputation over the centuries though is that it is a book that was written. It's not a journal, as I had first thought, and nor does it contain that many lists (although it does have some). White presents his volume in the form of a collection of letters - a device that many readers will instantly be familiar with. There seems to be some doubt as to how genuine these letters are - some were clearly written long after the fact and others may have been embellished when the idea to publish became entrenched. What's striking is the language that White uses to describe his observations, which are often strikingly clear. It's the quality of the writing, as well as of the observations, that have ensured this book's status as a classic of Natural History writing.
January 1, 2012
Just re-read this classic. As the American revolution goes on across the ocean, this wise and observant English minister watches a tortoise, maybe 60 years old, thinks about when the swallows migrate, takes note of the snowfalls, occasionally, and the owls and the worms. Unpretentious and utterly gripping.
July 29, 2017
At times this a very interesting read. At other times (when he listed things that he'd already gone over), it was very borning. It also became tedious when the extensive Latin was not translated. Not even in footnotes added later for modern readers. The amount of killing of animals was hard to take too.
August 30, 2025
I live just up the road from Gilbert White’s house and recently visited it for the first time (one of those “why’d it take so long to see something so close” moments) I had read snippets of his work in other books and combining that with what was at the house I decided it was about time I gave this classic nature book a go…of course I had to get the best looking copy which was the one Little Toller published.
My first thoughts after reading was how amazingly enthusiastic was White, from birds to crickets and even watching his thermometer, his excitement is contagious and I wondered if those he wrote to fully appreciated his letters or did they roll their eyes at another lengthy post from that White chap. It is easy to see just how important this book is, White writes about a culture/place that is far different from today and the data he records shows rainfalls, temperatures, bird counts, both common and rare and an account of the people and how they worked the land.
There are shocking moments too, modern day me can’t help but be shocked when he talks about a rare bird visiting Selborne and BANG! it gets shot dead so he can have a closer look, or when he takes baby birds out of a nest and puts them on the ground to see what they do. But then if White was here today he would have a lot more shocks, how we happily chop down a forest for a mass of horrible looking houses or how the government refuses to pass a super simple law like nest boxes to save swifts. One thing did make me laugh, he would find a dead bird, box it up and post it to a friend, imagine doing that today…wouldn’t be much left after it had spent two weeks at the post office sorting branch at Swindon.
The book itself was very interesting, sometimes it could get bogged down with data and quotes but it was his theories that I found fascinating, working through all the info he has to try and figure out where House martins go when it gets cold. My favourite bit was when he says that he has spent 40 years in this small area learning everything he can about Nature and he still gets surprised by what it can do. Brilliant.
Hugely interesting book, probably best to find out more about the chap before you dive into this book.
Blog review: https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2025...
My first thoughts after reading was how amazingly enthusiastic was White, from birds to crickets and even watching his thermometer, his excitement is contagious and I wondered if those he wrote to fully appreciated his letters or did they roll their eyes at another lengthy post from that White chap. It is easy to see just how important this book is, White writes about a culture/place that is far different from today and the data he records shows rainfalls, temperatures, bird counts, both common and rare and an account of the people and how they worked the land.
There are shocking moments too, modern day me can’t help but be shocked when he talks about a rare bird visiting Selborne and BANG! it gets shot dead so he can have a closer look, or when he takes baby birds out of a nest and puts them on the ground to see what they do. But then if White was here today he would have a lot more shocks, how we happily chop down a forest for a mass of horrible looking houses or how the government refuses to pass a super simple law like nest boxes to save swifts. One thing did make me laugh, he would find a dead bird, box it up and post it to a friend, imagine doing that today…wouldn’t be much left after it had spent two weeks at the post office sorting branch at Swindon.
The book itself was very interesting, sometimes it could get bogged down with data and quotes but it was his theories that I found fascinating, working through all the info he has to try and figure out where House martins go when it gets cold. My favourite bit was when he says that he has spent 40 years in this small area learning everything he can about Nature and he still gets surprised by what it can do. Brilliant.
Hugely interesting book, probably best to find out more about the chap before you dive into this book.
Blog review: https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2025...
September 3, 2018
The 18th century included some well known epistolary novels, and this book is an epistolary natural history. As with those 18th century novels, the epistolary style requires some patience. Selborne is the parish where Gilbert White lived (serving as parson). He embarked on a project to carefully observe the natural world. He believes that the progress of natural science will be aided by many people sharing observations about their small corner of the world. White is best known for bird observations, and clearly what birds did in the winter was a matter of speculation and controversy. He argues mostly for migration, but there are enough anomalies and birds sighted when they should be gone that he waffles a bit. I always enjoy reading people in the midst of trying to figure out the world. I try to imagine why this or that question was hard to figure out. And this is a good one for showing that kind of in-process thinking about the world. Plenty of contemporary books will tell you the facts (or just Wikipedia), but it took time to get there, and lots of patient observers like White. Everything in the natural world stirs his curiosity, from the doings of a long lived tortoise in someone's backyard to the winter survival of crickets to atmospheric anomalies. There is a refreshing lack of disciplinary boundaries in his observations, and it can be sad to think of how this kind of naturalist is no longer possible. He also appears to see no division between his religious beliefs and the facts of the natural world. I would love to read his sermons and get a sense of what he thought about when birds and all manner of living thing weren't occupying his attention. He doesn't yet feel the challenges that will come in the 19th century with Darwin. Gilbert White could walk around his parish with full confidence that it all made sense: his faith, his class position, the natural world. He could even season his natural observations with bits of the poetry of Milton and Virgil. This is a beautiful little book that every lover of the natural world should read.
June 6, 2024
My first reaction when starting this book was that I liked it for its quaintness (English not American meaning). Then it occurred to me that if any reader was to enjoy Gilbert White’s narrative they would have to possess at least an interest in ornithology and some knowledge too. Without that, it would soon become tedious.
Richard Mabey’s introduction and notes were enlightening and useful as far as they went, but I would have appreciated more help with the Latin and Greek text that White was so keen to use. Also, an index and a list of species with their common names and scientific names of the time as well as their present day names; that would have been so useful as to be almost essential.
Overall, I enjoyed this book as I fell into the delightful setting of Selborne and its surroundings. I just wish the reverend gentleman had swapped his gun for a telescope and shown more reverence for the natural world.
Richard Mabey’s introduction and notes were enlightening and useful as far as they went, but I would have appreciated more help with the Latin and Greek text that White was so keen to use. Also, an index and a list of species with their common names and scientific names of the time as well as their present day names; that would have been so useful as to be almost essential.
Overall, I enjoyed this book as I fell into the delightful setting of Selborne and its surroundings. I just wish the reverend gentleman had swapped his gun for a telescope and shown more reverence for the natural world.
April 10, 2021
A landmark read
Delighted and somewhat surprised to have read all the book. I have picked it up many times but never made it beyond the first two letters.. but this time I read a letter a day and savoured the detail. I have nothing but admiration for the detailed observations and records kept by Gilbert White. My favourite entry was his description of the house martin patiently building her nest, working in the morning and resting in the afternoon, instinctively knowing that time was needed to stand back from the work and let it dry. This is a real lesson on focussing and celebrating the world in front of you in your own back yard whilst momentous events (such as the storming of the Bastille and theWar of Independence) were raging all around: a perfect 2021 lockdown read. I’m looking forward to visiting Selborne as soon as we are able to travel again.
Delighted and somewhat surprised to have read all the book. I have picked it up many times but never made it beyond the first two letters.. but this time I read a letter a day and savoured the detail. I have nothing but admiration for the detailed observations and records kept by Gilbert White. My favourite entry was his description of the house martin patiently building her nest, working in the morning and resting in the afternoon, instinctively knowing that time was needed to stand back from the work and let it dry. This is a real lesson on focussing and celebrating the world in front of you in your own back yard whilst momentous events (such as the storming of the Bastille and theWar of Independence) were raging all around: a perfect 2021 lockdown read. I’m looking forward to visiting Selborne as soon as we are able to travel again.
November 28, 2017
I've got to admit, this book was better than a sleeping pill. With the Librivox narrator's soothing voice and the author's detailed explanation of nature in his small corner of the world, it was very effective at knocking me out. Despite this it was still rather interesting. The author was fascinated by birds and their migration habits. He often posed questions that I longed to answer. He obviously had a very curious mind. Listening to his book was like hearing one half of a conversation. Sometimes I would have liked to hear the letters from his correspondents too. But the book would be much too large.
June 27, 2025
The rare bird arrives and nests, the boy steals the egg then someone shoots it. The sportsman tells how he would shoot 20 doves in an hour. Another bird is appreciated and shot. Relentless. I appreciate some birds were shot so White could see whst was inside it (by no means all) but I can't say I enjoy reading about it page after page.
September 30, 2020
A great book for naturalists and nature lovers. This is a series of letters that Gilbert White wrote in the late 18th century about his observations of the animal and plant life in countryside of Selborne in East Hampshire, U.K. This edition includes his colored illustrations as well.
August 19, 2020
This is a delightfully well-written and epistolary window into the enthusiasm and methods of the 18th century naturalists, as well as a testament to love of place in all its particulars.
January 13, 2021
White has a beautiful, homely style and a fine eye.
January 13, 2022
Where can I find someone to exchange letters with who will encourage me to share everything I know about swallows and wheatears.
September 5, 2014
First off, let me suggest finding, if you can, the Thames & White Illustrated version of this book. The period illustrations are a nice touch.
I've been hearing about this book for years. John Burroughs, the naturalist, cites Gilbert White as the father of real naturalists. White's book is said to have influenced Thoreau and Darwin and a host of others. Not three months go by that The Natural History of Selbourne isn't mentioned in a New York Times Book Review article. So I finally decided to see what all the fuss was about.
Well, I get it. First published in 1789, the book is an outgrowth of a movement that was given a boost by Daines Barrington. Barrington had invented a blank diary for taking notes on Nature -- The Naturalist's Journal -- and in 1768 he had given one to Gilbert White, who had already been keeping annual notes on the events in his Hampshire gardens. White also began corresponding with a couple of gentleman naturalists, using his diary notes for data, and a couple of those letters were then published (with his permission) in scientific journals. This led to the idea of publishing a book made up of edited versions of his letters, and that is what we have.
Here's the deal. The focus of naturalists before and during this time had been dead specimens. You collected samples of botanical matter, glued them to pages, and tried to classify them. You went into the wilds and shot everything you couldn't trap, and stuffed the specimens and tried to classify them. There was very little observation of how life operated in Nature, just how it was made. They didn't understand bird migration, for instance; or the effect of climate and soil. No systematic data.
Barrington and White and others knew this was a problem, and they dealt with it by systematically observing what happened in their own back yards, and writing down what they saw. Then they shared the information. White is able to begin to trace some bird migrations by studying, over years, the rough dates when certain species first appear, and then last appear, in his home town. Then he writes to a guy in Cornwall, and a guy in Scotland, and a guy in Essex, and they compare notes. Which is really basic, but these folks are the ones who got the ball rolling. It's amazing what he figured out in his neighborhood (and Selbourne has a little bit of a number of different habitats, giving him comparisons to work with), and amusing what he got wrong.
He's also got a gift for making these observations interesting. In one case he thinks people might like to know how rushlights are made (it was a peasant cottage industry) and so he explains it, in step-by-step detail. He figures out the cost, and why they are so much more efficient than candles. As I was reading it I thought "I bet this is a famous essay" and then discovered that there's basically a wikipedia article that is just this information; and that it's the major source of information for everybody. I learned a lot that I didn't know, which is generally enough of a recommendation all on its own.
I've been hearing about this book for years. John Burroughs, the naturalist, cites Gilbert White as the father of real naturalists. White's book is said to have influenced Thoreau and Darwin and a host of others. Not three months go by that The Natural History of Selbourne isn't mentioned in a New York Times Book Review article. So I finally decided to see what all the fuss was about.
Well, I get it. First published in 1789, the book is an outgrowth of a movement that was given a boost by Daines Barrington. Barrington had invented a blank diary for taking notes on Nature -- The Naturalist's Journal -- and in 1768 he had given one to Gilbert White, who had already been keeping annual notes on the events in his Hampshire gardens. White also began corresponding with a couple of gentleman naturalists, using his diary notes for data, and a couple of those letters were then published (with his permission) in scientific journals. This led to the idea of publishing a book made up of edited versions of his letters, and that is what we have.
Here's the deal. The focus of naturalists before and during this time had been dead specimens. You collected samples of botanical matter, glued them to pages, and tried to classify them. You went into the wilds and shot everything you couldn't trap, and stuffed the specimens and tried to classify them. There was very little observation of how life operated in Nature, just how it was made. They didn't understand bird migration, for instance; or the effect of climate and soil. No systematic data.
Barrington and White and others knew this was a problem, and they dealt with it by systematically observing what happened in their own back yards, and writing down what they saw. Then they shared the information. White is able to begin to trace some bird migrations by studying, over years, the rough dates when certain species first appear, and then last appear, in his home town. Then he writes to a guy in Cornwall, and a guy in Scotland, and a guy in Essex, and they compare notes. Which is really basic, but these folks are the ones who got the ball rolling. It's amazing what he figured out in his neighborhood (and Selbourne has a little bit of a number of different habitats, giving him comparisons to work with), and amusing what he got wrong.
He's also got a gift for making these observations interesting. In one case he thinks people might like to know how rushlights are made (it was a peasant cottage industry) and so he explains it, in step-by-step detail. He figures out the cost, and why they are so much more efficient than candles. As I was reading it I thought "I bet this is a famous essay" and then discovered that there's basically a wikipedia article that is just this information; and that it's the major source of information for everybody. I learned a lot that I didn't know, which is generally enough of a recommendation all on its own.
January 30, 2020
This is an exceeldingly charming and at times very slightly boring book made up of letters sent by the Rev Gilbert White around the time of the American Revolution, in which he closely describes the flora and in particuilar, the wildlife, of his small parish of Selbourne in the south of England.
(Other books I've read a little like this are The Peregrine, which has a similar intense focus, but this time on a single subject, and which is a much more intense and moody book, and Fire on the Rim, which is also about a particular relationship with a certain environment over time.)
The modern form it most closely approximates, with its short particular chapters, some focuised, some wandering, all linked by a common personality and subject, is a blog. Though Gilbert Whites blog is unusually good.
Whites language has the lucididy, slight sensuality and precision that I have become accustomed with from the best Sceintific writers of the 18th Century. One person who he reminds me of a great deal is Faraday in his book on the observation of a candle flame, who also combined great powers of observation and keen description with a controlled sensuality and love of beauty.
If anything the book is a masterpeice of observation. It is meditative, like the Peregrine, but not othering. The vividness and close attention of Whites scenes and prose, and the lively humour one percieves beind it, means that to read we almost walk alongside White into moments and scenes. The closeness of his eye and the exactness of his words create moments and sights that bring fragments of his world before our eyes. Particular moments - a bug scurries along the letters of a page, White hurls a clod of earth into a bush or races home excitedly in his carriage with a recently obtained tortoise.
(The savagery of the natural philosopher is well displayed throughout the book. White began as a huntsman and has no trouble shooting his way through animal life, cutting it open, or messing about with corpses. This is all part of his world.)
All novels and books are in some sense a compression of time but Whites Natural History makes the brilliance of that compression its chief ornament. To open it is a little like being given access to a time machine and being able to hop along Whites existance, dipping in and out into a myriad of small experiences.
Drama, other than the drama of cutting open an eel or finding swallows nesting on the corpse of a dead owl, is absent, and must be, in order to maintain the coherency of the related world. One Large Incident would cast the whole thing into shade.
We do see fragments of Whites social and cultural world, and a mirror of his personality (or at least what we assume to be his personality) through his description. The existance of the poor of his villiage is mentioned in one chapter, the uses of farmland. Farm-lore and house-lore spring up (bats come down chimneys to eat bacon in the night, an old sow gorws intelligent enough to open her own gate and travel several miles to a male pig when in heat).
And it has the greatest benefit of many good books, that it is short.
LETTER 42
(Selbourn spends nearly the entire letter writing out, in one long paragraph, an exacting and very mildly lyrical description of the movements of birds, which hovers a little near poetry. I have spereated out each bird, line by line and sentance by sentance to make the whole easier in comprehension.
"And the true bird is clear from its gait"
Thus kites and buzzards sail round in circles with wings expanded and motionless; and it is from their gliding manner that the former are still called in the north of England gleads, from the Saxon glidan, to glide.
The kestrel, or wind-hover, has a peculiar mode of hanging in the air in one place, his wings all the while being briskly agitated.
Hen-harriers fly over heaths of fields of corn and beat the ground regularly, like a pointer or setting-dog.
Owls move in a bouyant manner, as if lighter than the air; they seem to want ballast.
There is a peculiarity belonging to ravens that must draw the attention of even the most incurious - they spend all their leisure time in striking and cuffing each other on the wing in a kind of playful skirmish; and, when they move from one place to another, frequently turn on their backs with a loud croak, and seem to be falling to the ground.. When this odd gesture betites them, they are scratching themselves with one foot, and thus lose the centre of gravity.
Rooks sometimes dive and tumble in a frolicksome manner;
crows and daws swagger in their walk;
wood-peckers, fly volta undoso [in an undulating fashion], opening and closing their wings at every stroke, and so are always rising or falling in curves.
All of this genus use their tails, which inclide downward, as a support while they run up trees.
Parrots, like all other hooked-clawed birds, walk aukwardly, and make use of their bill as a third foot, climbing and descending with ridiculous caution.
All the gallinae parade and walk gracefully, and run nimbly; but fly with difficulty, with an impetuous whirring, and in a straight line.
Magpies and jays stutter with powerless wings and make no dispatch;
herons seem incumbered with too much sail for their light bodies; but these vast hollow wings are necessary in carrying burdens, such as large fishes, and the like;
pigeons, and particularly the sort called smiters, have a way of clashing their wings the one against the other over their backs with a loud snap; another variety called tumblers turn themselves over in the air.
Some birds have movement peculiar to the season of love: thus ring-doves, though strong and rapid at other times, yet in the spring hang about on the wing in a toying and playful manner;
thus the cock-snipe, while breeding, forgetting his former flight, fans the air like the wind-hover;
and the green-finch in particular exhibits such languishing and faultering gestures as to appear like a wounded and dying bird;
the king-fisher darts along like an arrow;
fern-owls, or goat-suckers, glance in the dusk over the tops of trees like a meteor;
starlings as it were swim along,
while missel-thrushes use a wild and desultory flight;
swallows sweep over the surface of the ground and water, and distinguish themselves by rapid turns and quick evolutions;
swifts dash round in circles;
and the bank martin moves with frequent vacillations like a butterfly.
Most of the small birds fly by jerks, rising and falling as they advance.
Most small birds hop but wagtails and larks walk, moving their legs alternately.
Skylarks rise and fall perpendicularly as they sing;
woodlarks hang poised in the air;
and titlarks rise and fall in large curves, singing in their descent.
The white-throat uses odd jerks and gesticulations over the tops of hedges and bushes.
All the duck-kind waddle;
divers and auks walk as if fettered, and stand erect on their tails: these are the compedes of Linnaeus.
Geese and cranes, and most wild-fowls, move in figured flights, often changing their position.
The secondary remiges of Tringae, wild-ducks, and some others, are long, and give their wings, when in motion, an hooked appearance.
Dabchicks, moor-hens and coots, fly erect, with their legs hanging down, and hardly make any dispatch; the reason is plain, their wings are places too forward out of the true centre of gravity;
as the legs of auks and divers are situated too backward.
(Other books I've read a little like this are The Peregrine, which has a similar intense focus, but this time on a single subject, and which is a much more intense and moody book, and Fire on the Rim, which is also about a particular relationship with a certain environment over time.)
The modern form it most closely approximates, with its short particular chapters, some focuised, some wandering, all linked by a common personality and subject, is a blog. Though Gilbert Whites blog is unusually good.
Whites language has the lucididy, slight sensuality and precision that I have become accustomed with from the best Sceintific writers of the 18th Century. One person who he reminds me of a great deal is Faraday in his book on the observation of a candle flame, who also combined great powers of observation and keen description with a controlled sensuality and love of beauty.
If anything the book is a masterpeice of observation. It is meditative, like the Peregrine, but not othering. The vividness and close attention of Whites scenes and prose, and the lively humour one percieves beind it, means that to read we almost walk alongside White into moments and scenes. The closeness of his eye and the exactness of his words create moments and sights that bring fragments of his world before our eyes. Particular moments - a bug scurries along the letters of a page, White hurls a clod of earth into a bush or races home excitedly in his carriage with a recently obtained tortoise.
(The savagery of the natural philosopher is well displayed throughout the book. White began as a huntsman and has no trouble shooting his way through animal life, cutting it open, or messing about with corpses. This is all part of his world.)
All novels and books are in some sense a compression of time but Whites Natural History makes the brilliance of that compression its chief ornament. To open it is a little like being given access to a time machine and being able to hop along Whites existance, dipping in and out into a myriad of small experiences.
Drama, other than the drama of cutting open an eel or finding swallows nesting on the corpse of a dead owl, is absent, and must be, in order to maintain the coherency of the related world. One Large Incident would cast the whole thing into shade.
We do see fragments of Whites social and cultural world, and a mirror of his personality (or at least what we assume to be his personality) through his description. The existance of the poor of his villiage is mentioned in one chapter, the uses of farmland. Farm-lore and house-lore spring up (bats come down chimneys to eat bacon in the night, an old sow gorws intelligent enough to open her own gate and travel several miles to a male pig when in heat).
And it has the greatest benefit of many good books, that it is short.
LETTER 42
(Selbourn spends nearly the entire letter writing out, in one long paragraph, an exacting and very mildly lyrical description of the movements of birds, which hovers a little near poetry. I have spereated out each bird, line by line and sentance by sentance to make the whole easier in comprehension.
"And the true bird is clear from its gait"
Thus kites and buzzards sail round in circles with wings expanded and motionless; and it is from their gliding manner that the former are still called in the north of England gleads, from the Saxon glidan, to glide.
The kestrel, or wind-hover, has a peculiar mode of hanging in the air in one place, his wings all the while being briskly agitated.
Hen-harriers fly over heaths of fields of corn and beat the ground regularly, like a pointer or setting-dog.
Owls move in a bouyant manner, as if lighter than the air; they seem to want ballast.
There is a peculiarity belonging to ravens that must draw the attention of even the most incurious - they spend all their leisure time in striking and cuffing each other on the wing in a kind of playful skirmish; and, when they move from one place to another, frequently turn on their backs with a loud croak, and seem to be falling to the ground.. When this odd gesture betites them, they are scratching themselves with one foot, and thus lose the centre of gravity.
Rooks sometimes dive and tumble in a frolicksome manner;
crows and daws swagger in their walk;
wood-peckers, fly volta undoso [in an undulating fashion], opening and closing their wings at every stroke, and so are always rising or falling in curves.
All of this genus use their tails, which inclide downward, as a support while they run up trees.
Parrots, like all other hooked-clawed birds, walk aukwardly, and make use of their bill as a third foot, climbing and descending with ridiculous caution.
All the gallinae parade and walk gracefully, and run nimbly; but fly with difficulty, with an impetuous whirring, and in a straight line.
Magpies and jays stutter with powerless wings and make no dispatch;
herons seem incumbered with too much sail for their light bodies; but these vast hollow wings are necessary in carrying burdens, such as large fishes, and the like;
pigeons, and particularly the sort called smiters, have a way of clashing their wings the one against the other over their backs with a loud snap; another variety called tumblers turn themselves over in the air.
Some birds have movement peculiar to the season of love: thus ring-doves, though strong and rapid at other times, yet in the spring hang about on the wing in a toying and playful manner;
thus the cock-snipe, while breeding, forgetting his former flight, fans the air like the wind-hover;
and the green-finch in particular exhibits such languishing and faultering gestures as to appear like a wounded and dying bird;
the king-fisher darts along like an arrow;
fern-owls, or goat-suckers, glance in the dusk over the tops of trees like a meteor;
starlings as it were swim along,
while missel-thrushes use a wild and desultory flight;
swallows sweep over the surface of the ground and water, and distinguish themselves by rapid turns and quick evolutions;
swifts dash round in circles;
and the bank martin moves with frequent vacillations like a butterfly.
Most of the small birds fly by jerks, rising and falling as they advance.
Most small birds hop but wagtails and larks walk, moving their legs alternately.
Skylarks rise and fall perpendicularly as they sing;
woodlarks hang poised in the air;
and titlarks rise and fall in large curves, singing in their descent.
The white-throat uses odd jerks and gesticulations over the tops of hedges and bushes.
All the duck-kind waddle;
divers and auks walk as if fettered, and stand erect on their tails: these are the compedes of Linnaeus.
Geese and cranes, and most wild-fowls, move in figured flights, often changing their position.
The secondary remiges of Tringae, wild-ducks, and some others, are long, and give their wings, when in motion, an hooked appearance.
Dabchicks, moor-hens and coots, fly erect, with their legs hanging down, and hardly make any dispatch; the reason is plain, their wings are places too forward out of the true centre of gravity;
as the legs of auks and divers are situated too backward.
October 14, 2017
"Gilbert White's beautifully written evocation of the natural world of Selborne has remained enduringly popular since its first publication in 1788-89.
"What explains the fascination of this work? Gilbert White made many original contributions to science, but these were minor by comparison with those of giants like Darwin and Mendel. Yet his book, more than any other, has shaped our everyday view of the relations between human beings and nature.
"In it he suggests that the lives of birds and animals have their own richness and rhythm, and in demonstrating this belief with accuracy and percipience he struck a new note in nature writings. He once commented, 'The investigation of the life and conversation of animals is a concern of much more trouble and difficulty, and is not to be attained but by the active and inquisitive, and by those that reside much in the country.' Gilbert White was all of these things, and through his delightful 'parochial history' Selborne becomes, in David Elliston Allen's phrase, 'the secret, private parish inside each one of us'."
~~back cover
OI'd heard so much about this book, both in print and from friends: how wonderful it was, a great piece of nature writing. I did try, really I did. I quit once, and then tried again, this time making it all the way to page 54. It did improve, but not enough to hold my interest -- at least so far it's a very dry enumeration of the birds and animals of Selborne, punctuated with arguments/discussions with the person to whom he is writing. Perhaps I should have stuck with it, given such high advance praise, but I have 798 books in my TBR shelf and I'm behind 22 books in my challenge to read 125 this year. As Satchel Paige so pithly said, "Don't look back, something might be gaining on you." I feel like my mountain of books is growing faster than I can read them, consequently it would be counterproductive to slog through any book to slow down my progress. So it's goodbye Natural History of Selborne and off to the UBS to find a new home.
"What explains the fascination of this work? Gilbert White made many original contributions to science, but these were minor by comparison with those of giants like Darwin and Mendel. Yet his book, more than any other, has shaped our everyday view of the relations between human beings and nature.
"In it he suggests that the lives of birds and animals have their own richness and rhythm, and in demonstrating this belief with accuracy and percipience he struck a new note in nature writings. He once commented, 'The investigation of the life and conversation of animals is a concern of much more trouble and difficulty, and is not to be attained but by the active and inquisitive, and by those that reside much in the country.' Gilbert White was all of these things, and through his delightful 'parochial history' Selborne becomes, in David Elliston Allen's phrase, 'the secret, private parish inside each one of us'."
~~back cover
OI'd heard so much about this book, both in print and from friends: how wonderful it was, a great piece of nature writing. I did try, really I did. I quit once, and then tried again, this time making it all the way to page 54. It did improve, but not enough to hold my interest -- at least so far it's a very dry enumeration of the birds and animals of Selborne, punctuated with arguments/discussions with the person to whom he is writing. Perhaps I should have stuck with it, given such high advance praise, but I have 798 books in my TBR shelf and I'm behind 22 books in my challenge to read 125 this year. As Satchel Paige so pithly said, "Don't look back, something might be gaining on you." I feel like my mountain of books is growing faster than I can read them, consequently it would be counterproductive to slog through any book to slow down my progress. So it's goodbye Natural History of Selborne and off to the UBS to find a new home.
February 9, 2013
In this 18th century classic, Selborne describes, in letters, many of his observations of the natural history of his parish in Hampshire, England. While he touches on weather, geology, and botany, he primarily focuses on animals, and of that, primarily birds (about 2/3 of the book is about birds, and in the first 2/3 of the book, 80-85% is birds). His observations are fairly random, and the only real organization is chronological.
I picked this up after having heard it mentioned in a couple of other books as a great classic, and while I found parts of it interesting, I am not a naturalist so it mostly wasn't aimed at me. I did get very tired of lists of birds I'm not familiar with and the dates they arrived and left, and wish there had been more geology and more about ancient superstitions; the latter he only touched on once or twice, but I found it fascinating because he was so much closer, in time, than we are to such beliefs, and knew more about the reasons behind them and their practice. One thing that surprised me was that, for a naturalist, he had no qualms with killing his beloved birds to examine, and with dissecting them. Only once did he mention humane exploration, and that was with some sort of ground insect. In any case, I'm glad I got through it (helped by the sonorous British accent of the Librivox reader), but it's not one I'd recommend to anyone but those with a sincere interest in natural history and the evolution of observation of nature as a scientific method.
I picked this up after having heard it mentioned in a couple of other books as a great classic, and while I found parts of it interesting, I am not a naturalist so it mostly wasn't aimed at me. I did get very tired of lists of birds I'm not familiar with and the dates they arrived and left, and wish there had been more geology and more about ancient superstitions; the latter he only touched on once or twice, but I found it fascinating because he was so much closer, in time, than we are to such beliefs, and knew more about the reasons behind them and their practice. One thing that surprised me was that, for a naturalist, he had no qualms with killing his beloved birds to examine, and with dissecting them. Only once did he mention humane exploration, and that was with some sort of ground insect. In any case, I'm glad I got through it (helped by the sonorous British accent of the Librivox reader), but it's not one I'd recommend to anyone but those with a sincere interest in natural history and the evolution of observation of nature as a scientific method.
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