Page:White - The natural history of Selborne, and the naturalist's calendar, 1879.djvu/19

Rh neglected. But we agree with Mr. White in his idea of parochial history, which, he thinks, ought to consist of natural productions and occurrences, as well as antiquities: for antiquities, when once surveyed, seldom recall further attention, and are confined to one spot; whereas the pleasures of the naturalist continue through the year, return with unabated attractions every spring, and may be extended over the kingdom.

"Mr. White is the gentleman who some years ago favoured the world with a monography of the British Hirundines, published in the Philosophical Transactions, which we reviewed in a former volume. It is now reprinted, and the same sagacity of observation runs through the work before us.

"If this author should be thought by any to have been too minute in his researches, be it remembered that his studies have been in the great book of Nature. It must be confessed, that the economy of the several kinds of crickets, and the distinction between the stock-dove and the ring-dove, are humble pursuits, and will be esteemed trivial by many; perhaps by some to be objects of ridicule. However, before we condemn any pursuits, which contribute so much to health by calling us abroad, let us consider how the studious have employed themselves in their closets. In a former century, the minds of the learned were engaged in determining whether the name of the Roman poet should be spelt Vergilius or Virgilius; and the number of letters in the name of Shakespear still remains a matter of much solicitude and criticism. Nor can we but think that the conjectures about the migration of Hirundines are fully as interesting as the Chattertonian controversy.

"We could have wished that this gentleman had uniformly, as he has frequently, used the Linnæan names. No naturalist can