fore add, that my tall seventy-four feet beech measures six feet in the girth at two feet above the ground. Beeches seem to me to thrive best on stoney, or chalkey cliffs, where there seems to be little or no soil. Thus about a mile and an half from me to the S.E. in an abrupt field, stand four noble beech-trees on the edge of a steep, rocky ravine, or water-gulley, the biggest of which measures 9 ft. 5 in. at four feet from the ground. Their noble branching heads, and smooth rind show that they are in the highest vigour and preservation. Again the vast bloated, pollard, hollow beeches, mentioned before, stood on the bare, naked end of a chalky promontory, many of which measured from twenty to thirty feet in circumference! they were the admiration of all strangers. How has prevailed the notion that all old London was built with chestnut? It is with us now vile timber, porous, shakey, and fragile, and only fit for the meanest coopery purposes. Yet have I known it smuggled into Portsmouth dock as good ship building oak! 1

1

The more I observe and take notice of the best oaks now remaining in this neighbonrhood, the more I am astonished at the oak which you planted yourself. For there is a most noble tree of that kind near Hartely house, which I caused to be measured last week; when behold, at four feet above the ground the girth proved to be only 14 ft., when yours measured 12 ft. 6 in.! Why this fine shafted tree, with its majestic head, escaped the axe thirty years ago, when Sir Simeon Stuart felled all its contemporaries, I cannot pretend to say. If you ever happen to see the Hamadryad of your favourite oak, pray give my respects to her. She must be a fine venerable old lady. For a diverting story respecting an Hamadryad, see the "Spectator," vol. 8, p. 128. Behind my house I have got an outlet of seven acres laid

1 In his "Observations on Vegetables " (p. 359), White has remarked, "The timber and bark of these trees are so very like oak, as might, easily deceive an indifferent observer. * * * Chestnut sells for half the price of oak; but has sometimes been sent into the King's docks, and passed off instead of oak."- ED.

out in walks by my father. As the soil is strong, the hedges, which are cut-up, are prodigious. The maples about thirty-five feet in height, and the hazels, and whitethorns twenty, which, when feathered to the ground, were beautiful: but they now, being fifty years old, have rather over-stood their time; and besides, the severity of December, 1784, has occasioned irreparable damages among the branches. Thus much for trees. Lord Stawell has lately

sent me such a bird, sprung and shot in his coverts, as I never saw before, or shall again. I pronounced it to be a mule, bred between a cock pheasant and a pea-hen.1

2

You say woodcocks in their passage strike against lighthouses on your coast: a gentleman tells me, that at Penzance sea-fowls frequently dash in the night against windows where they see a light. My well is sixty-three feet in depth; yet in very dry seasons, as last autumn, it is nearly exhausted yet you would be surprised to see how few inches of rain falling will replenish it again. How do rains insinuate themselves to such depths? The rains this winter have been prodigious! In November last seven inches; in December six inches. The whole rain at Selborne in 1790 was thirty-two inches. Sure such thunder, and lightning, and winds have never fallen out within your observation in one winter! Had I known you thirty years ago, I should have been much pleased; because I would have gone to have seen you; and perhaps you might have been prevailed on when all our timber was standing, to have returned the visit. In the year 1746 I lived for six months

1 This was a hybrid between the Blackcock and Pheasant. It is noticed in the "Observations on Birds," under the head of "Hybrid Pheasant" (p. 326), where the author states that Mr. Elmer, of Farnham, the famous game painter, was "employed to take an exact copy of this curious bird." The picture was subsequently presented to Gilbert White by Lord Stawell (see Jesse's "Gleanings," second series, p. 159), and was engraved for the second edition of his works, where it will be found in vol. ii. p. 173.—Ed.

2 Sixty-three feet is stated to be the average depth of the wells at Selborne, which, when sunk to that depth, seldom fail. See Letter I. to Pennant (p. 4.)-ED.

at Thorney in the Isle of Ely, to settle an executorship, and dispose of live stock; there I lost nine oxen by their eating yew, as mentioned in my book.1 I hope you will write not long hence. With the truest respect and esteem

I remain,

Your most humble servant,

GIL. WHITE.

The dark butterfly which you saw was the papilio urticæ: it is often more early than the yellow papilio rhamni. At this moment the Barometer stands somewhat below 28 in. 5 tens the rain this day has been very great from the S.E.

LETTER III.

TO ROBERT MARSHAM, ESQUIRE.

SELBORNE, Feb. 25th, 1791.

2

IT was elegantly remarked on our common friend, and my quondam neighbour Doctor Stephen Hales, by one who has written his character in Latin, that-" scientiam philosophicam usibus humanis famulari jussit." " The observation was just, and the assertion no inconsiderable compliment: for undoubtedly speculative enquiries can bear no competition with practical ones, where the latter. profess never to lose sight of utility.

1 See Letter V. on the Antiquities of Selborne, p. 420.-ED.

2 This line was written by Dr. John Burton, and will be found in his "Opuscula Miscellanea Metrico-Prosaica" (1771) p. 55. Dr Burton has himself been eulogized as "a man whose liberality of sentiment always induced him to pay public respect to those whom he esteemed deserving of it." See the "Gentleman's Magazine," April, 1780, p. 166.-ED.

1

As I perceive you loved the good old man, I do not know how I can amuse you better, than by sending you the following anecdotes respecting him, some of which may not have fallen within your observation. His attention to the inside of ladies' tea-kettles, to observe how far they were incrusted with stone (tophus lebetinus Linnæi) that from thence he might judge of the salubrity of the water of their wells: his advising water to be showered down suspicious wells from the nozle of a garden watering-pot in order to discharge damps, before men ventured to descend;-his directing air-holes to be left in the out-walls of ground rooms, to prevent the rotting of floors and joists;-his earnest dissuasive to young people, not to drink their tea scalding hot; his advice to watermen at a ferry, how they might best preserve and keep sound the bottoms or floors of their boats;-his teaching the housewife to place an inverted tea-cup at the bottom of her pies and tarts to prevent the syrop from boiling over, and to preserve the juice ; -his many though unsuccessful attempts to find an adequate succedaneum for yeast or barm, so difficult to be procured in severe winters, and in many lonely situations;his endeavour to destroy insects on wall-fruit-trees by quick-silver poured into holes bored in their stems; and his experiments to dissolve the stone in human bodies, by, as I think, the juice of onions ;-are a few, among many, of those benevolent and useful pursuits on which his mind was constantly bent. Though a man of a Baronet's family, and of one of the best houses in Kent, yet was his humility so prevalent, that he did not disdain the lowest offices, provided they tended to the good of his fellow creatures. The last act of benevolence in which I saw him employed was, at his rectory of Faringdon, the next parish to this, where I found him in the street with his paint-pot before him, and

1 An extract from Hales's "Hæmastatics" (p. 360) will be found embodied by White in note to his Sixth Letter to Pennant (p. 18). -ED.

2 See note 1 to the first letter in the present series.-ED.

much busied in painting white with his own hands the tops of the foot-path posts, that his neighbours might not be injured by running against them in the dark. His whole mind seemed replete with experiment, which of course gave a tincture, and turn to his conversation, often somewhat peculiar, but always interesting. He used to lament to my father, how tedious a task it was to convince men, that sweet air was better than foul, alluding to his ventilators; and once told him, with some degree of emotion, that the first time he went on board a ship in harbour at Portsmouth, the officers were rude to him; and that he verily believed he should never have prevailed to have seen his ventilators in use in the Royal Navy, had not Lord Sandwich, then First Lord of the Admiralty, abetted his pursuits in a liberal manner, and sent him down to the Commissioners of the dock with letters of recommendation. It should not be forgotten that our friend, under the patronage of Sir Joseph Jekyll, was instrumental in procuring the Gin Act, and stopping that profusion of spirituous liquors which threatened to ruin the morals and constitutions of our common people at once.1 He used to say, that the hogs of distillers were more brutal than the hogs of other men; and that, when drunk, they used to bite pieces out of each other's backs and sides! With due respects I remain,

Your most humble servant,

GIL. WHITE.

I did myself the honour of writing to you very lately about trees, and other matters. This winter continues wet and mild: wet springs are bad for Selborne. My crocuses make a fine show.

1 The name of Dr. Stephen Hales, says his biographer, is to be remembered with respect as an early advocate of Temperance, in the cause of which, as before stated, he indited numerous sermons and tracts.-ED.