Front.

THE

NATURAL HISTORY

OF

SELBORNE.

BY THE REV. GILBERT WHITE, M.A.

WITH ADDITIONAL NOTES,

BY THE REV. J. G. WOOD, M.A.

AUTHOR OF THE ILLUSTRATED NATURAL HISTORY, ETC.

ILLUSTRATED WITH ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD.

LONDON:

ROUTLEDGE, WARNE, AND ROUTLEDGE,

BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL.

NEW YORK: 129, GRAND STREET.

1864.

R. CLAY, SON, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS, BREAD STREET HILL.

PREFACE.

WHEN SO many editions of this justly celebrated work have been published, and when men eminent in science and of European fame have lent their aid towards enriching its pages with additional notes and observations, it may be thought an act of presumption that one comparatively unknown to science, and utterly unknown to fame, should take upon himself the task of re-editing the same work.

Naturalists, however, are fully aware of the value of any observations, whether additional or merely corroborative; and even to the general reader, the additional notes will, it is hoped, render the work more instructive and interesting than it would have been without them.

Most of the observations are original, and in no place has even the substance of the note of another editor been given, although in several editions most appropriate and valuable notes have been inserted; and in many cases where extracts from scientific works had been added to the notes, they have been erased on discovering that other editors had made use of the same passages.

As the present edition is intended principally for the use of the young, or the general reader, many passages have been omitted, which, although useful to the scientific naturalist, might possibly have given offence to those whose studies in Natural History are not of a rigidly scientific character. Mr. White wrote as a