The natural history of Selborne / By the late Rev. Gilbert White.

  • Gilbert White
Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The natural history of Selborne / By the late Rev. Gilbert White. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    alone been reprinted^ the Antiquities being altogether omitted. This is the case with the one now offered to the public^ to which are annexed as many notes^ mostly neWj as the subject, in reference to the present advanced state of the science, seemed to require. What White’s “ idea” was, in regard to collec¬ tions for a Natural History of his own parish is sufficiently apparent from the whole tenor of his book, and from some passages in it especially. It was his opinion that Faunists are too apt to ac¬ quiesce in bare descriptions, and a few synonyms and he adds, the reason is plain ,* because all that may be done at home in a man’s study, but 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.” Thus it was his complaint against Sco- poli, that he was not so full with regard to the manners of his indigenous birds as might be wished though in other respects he seems to have thought favourably of his work, which he alludes to in several places. Anxious to avoid this error. White paid the most
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