The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 — Key Ideas to Explore

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Authors: White, Gilbert, 1720-1793, Morley, Henry, 1822-1894 [Editor] Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2007 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Natural history -- England -- Selborne -- Early works to 1800; Selborne (England) -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800; Selborne (England) -- Antiquities -- Early works to 1800 Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

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Words 44,534

Reading time 194 min

Text sections 5

The catalog record for The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 — Key Ideas to Explore provides practical reading context through 44,534 words, 3 hr 14 min estimated reading time, and 5 detected text sections.

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Source: Project Gutenberg record #20934

Gilbert White's second volume of natural history letters from Selborne, blending precise observations of swallows, plants, and local geography with philosophical reflections on botany and the interconnectedness of nature and human life.

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ere pasturing on one side of the stream, and the variegated breed of his son-in-law Jacob were cantoned along on the other. And this diversity holds good respectively on each side from the valley of Bramber and Beeding to the eastward, and westward all the whole length of the downs. If you talk with the shepherds on this subject, they tell you that the case has been so from time immemorial; and smile at your simplicity if you ask them whether the situation of these two different breeds might not be reversed? However, an intelligent friend of mine near Chichester is determined to try the experiment; and has this autumn, at the hazard of being laughed at, introduced a parcel of black-faced hornless rams among his horned western ewes. The black-faced poll-sheep have the shortest legs and the finest wool.

As I had hardly ever before travelled these downs at so late a season of the year, I was determined to keep as sharp a look-out as possible so near the southern coast, with respect to the summer short-winged birds of passage. We make great inquiries concerning the withdrawing of the swallow kind, without examining enough into the causes why this tribe is never to be seen in winter; for, _entre nous_, the disappearing of the latter is more marvellous than that of the former, and much more unaccountable. The hirundines, if they please, are certainly capable of migration, and yet no doubt are often found in a torpid state; but redstarts, nightingales, white-throats, black-caps, etc., are very ill provided for long flights; have never been once found, as I ever heard of, in a torpid state, and yet can never be supposed, in such troops, from year to year to dodge and elude the eyes of the curious and inquisitive, which from day to day discern the other small birds that are known to abide our winters. But, notwithstanding all my care, I saw nothing like a summer bird of passage; and what is more strange not one wheat-ear, though they abound so in the autumn as to be a considerable perquisite to the shepherds that take them; and though many are to be seen to my knowledge all the winter through in many parts of the south of England. The most intelligent shepherds tell me that some few of these birds appear on the downs in March, and then withdraw to breed probably in warrens and stone-quarries: now and then a nest is ploughed up in a fallow on the downs under a furrow, but it is thought a rarity. At the time of wheat-harvest they begin to be taken in great numbers; are sent for sale in vast quantities to Brightelmstone and Tunbridge; and appear at the tables of all the gentry that entertain with any degree of elegance. About Michaelmas they retire and are seen no more till March. Though the birds are, when in season, in great plenty on the south downs round Lewes, yet at East Bourn, which is the eastern extremity of those downs, they abound much more. One thing is very remarkable, that though in the height of the season so many hundreds of dozens are taken, yet they never are seen to flock; and it is a rare thing to see more than three or four at a time; so that there must be a perpetual flitting and constant progressive succession. It does not appear that any wheat-ears are taken to the westward of Houghton Bridge, which stands on the river Arun.

I did not fail to look particularly after my new migration of ring-ousels, and to take notice whether they continued on the downs to this season of the year; as I had formerly remarked them in the month of October all the way from Chichester to Lewes wherever there were any shrubs and covert: but not one bird of this sort came within my observation. I only saw a few larks and whin-chats, some rooks, and several kites and buzzards.

About Midsummer a flight of cross-bills comes to the pine-groves about this house, but never makes any long stay.

The old tortoise, that I have mentioned in a former letter, still continues in this garden; and retired under ground about the 20th November, and came out again for one day on the 30th: it lies now buried in a wet swampy border under a wall facing to the south, and is enveloped at present in mud and mire!

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Gilbert White's second volume of The Natural History of Selborne opens with an editor's introduction that situates the village in a landscape of steep hills, hanging beech woods, and a constant spring called the Well Head. The editor traces the name Selborne to Old English roots meaning 'healthful brook,' linking the place's pastoral identity to its physical setting. White's own letters, addressed to naturalists like Thomas Pennant and Daines Barrington, move between precise seasonal records—such as the return of swallows and house-martins—and broader reflections on the philosophy of natural knowledge.

Letters as a Structural Frame

White organizes his observations through dated letters, each addressed to a specific correspondent. This epistolary structure allows him to shift between topics without rigid chapter divisions. In Letter XL, dated June 2, 1778, he defends botany against the charge that it merely amuses the fancy, arguing that system should be 'subservient to, not the main object of, pursuit.' The letter form also permits abrupt changes in scale: from the minute distinctions of grasses to the global commerce in sugar, tea, and tobacco. White's voice remains conversational yet precise, as when he notes that the numbers of returning swallows 'bear no manner of proportion to the numbers retiring.'

Recurring Images of Shelter and Exposure

The editor's introduction describes Selborne as sheltered by The Hanger and Nore Hill, a 'pleasant shelter' that shapes the village's character. White himself returns to images of exposure and protection throughout his letters. The great oak in the Plestor, blown down in the storm of 1703, contrasts with the old yew in the churchyard that 'has escaped all storms.' In his poem 'An Invitation to Selborne,' White evokes 'scapes grotesque and wild' and a garden 'high on a mound' overlooking deep valleys. These recurring contrasts—between sheltered valleys and exposed heights, between enduring yews and fallen oaks—give the landscape a moral as well as physical dimension.

Movement Between Local Detail and Universal Reflection

White's method is to ground broad claims in local particulars. In Letter XLI, he notes that Selborne's 'variety of hill and dale, aspects, and soils' yields a great choice of plants. From this local diversity, he moves to a philosophical argument: the botanist should study useful plants, not merely classify obscure genera. He criticizes those who 'readily ascertain every herb of the field, yet hardly know wheat from barley.' The movement from Selborne's chalk downs to the global reach of vegetation—'hips and haws' versus 'the delicate fruits of India'—is characteristic. White treats the parish as a microcosm, where careful attention to one place yields insights applicable everywhere.

The Practical Botanist's Vision

White repeatedly urges that natural history serve practical ends. He praises the botanist who can 'improve the sward of the district where he lived' and calls for grafting 'the gardener, the planter, and the husbandman, on the phytologist.' His critique of mere system—'without system the field of Nature would be a pathless wilderness, but system should be subservient'—reflects a preference for useful knowledge over abstract classification. The closing image of making 'two blades of grass grow where one alone was seen before' encapsulates this utilitarian ideal. White's letters thus function as both scientific record and moral exhortation, urging readers to see natural history as a discipline with tangible benefits for agriculture, commerce, and daily life.

Readers approaching this volume should attend to the interplay between White's local observations and his broader arguments. The letters reward careful attention to dates and locations, as White often builds cumulative evidence across multiple missives. His prose, though occasionally digressive, is consistently grounded in the Hampshire landscape he knew intimately. The editor's introduction, while external to White's original work, provides useful context for the village's topography and history.

There are evenings when I reread Gilbert White's patient swallow notes and feel the quiet ache of time passing—how his seasons map so neatly onto our own brief ones. That same undercurrent of human strangeness, the way belief bends a life, surfaces elsewhere too, in Freaks of Fanaticism, and Other Strange Events — Context and Discussion. Both books ask me to sit with oddness, unhurried, and call it home.