Uxbridge, Pennant's fellow-traveller. It is evident, too, that White's sympathies were not limited to the animals of his own country, as is shown by the interest he took in his brother's zoological investigations at Gibraltar, and in the Chinese dogs brought home by Charles Etty, a son of the vicar of Selborne (Letter lviii. to Barrington), to say nothing of his desire to see the swallows of Jamaica (Letter vii. to the same).
It is perhaps impossible now to ascertain when the notion of publishing his observations in a separate work first occurred to White, or when he formed the determination of doing so. Early in 1770 Barrington must have made some suggestion on the subject, to which White replied on 12 April in hesitating terms: 'It is no small undertaking for a man unsupported and alone to begin a natural history from his own autopsia!' Something must also have passed between him and Pennant, for the next year, in a letter to him of 19 July, of which only an extract has been printed (Bell, vol. i. p. xlix), he says: 'As to any publication in this way of my own, I look upon it with great diffidence, finding that I ought to have begun it twenty years ago.' In 1773, writing to his brother John, he says (ib. ii. 21): 'If you don't make haste I shall publish before you;' and again in 1774 (ib. ii. 28): 'Out of all my journals I think I might collect matter enough and such a series of incidents as might pretty well comprehend the natural history of this district. … To these might be added some circumstances of the country its most curious plants, its few antiquities all which altogether might soon be moulded into a work, had I resolution and spirits to set about it.' The following year, however, he seems to have made up his mind, though in the spring of 1775 his eyes suffered 'from overmuch reading' (ib. ii. 40). In October he wrote (ib. pp. 44, 45), 'Mr. Grimm has not appeared,' he being the Swiss draughtsman who eventually executed the plates for the work. Writing from London to Sam Barker on 7 Feb. 1776, he was still in doubt, at any rate, as to the form of publication he should adopt; but he had been to see Grimm, who a few weeks later came to Selborne, and is called 'my artist' (ib. ii. 128), taking views of the Hermitage and other places subsequently engraved for the volume; while White declares his intention 'some time hence' to publish 'in some way or other' a new edition of his papers on the 'Hirundines.' Those memorable monographs, almost the earliest in zoological literature, he had communicated through Barrington, at whose instigation they were written (ib. ii. 20), in 1774 and 1775 to the Royal Society, for insertion in the 'Philosophical Transactions.' There they were printed, although very carelessly, as the author justly complained (ib. ii. 115). He had intended another paper, on 'Caprimulgus' to follow, but Barrington, having quarrelled with the Society (ib. ii. 43), would not present it (ib. ii. 229). In the first half of 1777 White had a severe illness (J. Mulso, in litt. 1 June 1777), which must have interfered with his work on which he had begun to be seriously engaged. Moreover, the antiquarian portion—for he had decided to include in it an account of the antiquities of Selborne (Bell, ii. 137)—obviously required much labour, and he spent a good part of October in that year at Oxford, investigating the archives of Magdalen College, to which the priory of Selborne had been united on its suppression some fifty years before the general dissolution of the monasteries. In this task White was greatly assisted by his friend Richard Chandler (1738-1810) [q. v.],the celebrated Greek traveller and antiquary, who not only examined for him the records relating to Selborne possessed by that college, but also those which he was allowed to borrow from the dean and chapter of Winchester. About 1779 White became acquainted with Ralph Churton [q. v.], from whom he received no little assistance, as appears by their correspondence first published by Bell (ii. 186-230). Still, progress was slow, and he complained to Sam Barker that 'much writing and transcribing always hurts me' (ib. ii. 139). Mulso's letters repeatedly urge greater speed, but White was not to be hurried in the execution of his self-imposed task. He evidently determined that what he had to do he would do with his might, and the result justified his delay. It was not until January 1788 that he wrote to Sam Barker (ib. ii. 168) that he had at length put his 'last hand' to the book; but still there was the index to make —'an occupation full as entertaining as that of darning of stockings'—and the actual publication did not take place until the end of that year, the volume bearing on its title-page the date 1789. Almost coincident with its appearance was the death of his youngest brother Harry, of Fyfield, with whom he was always on most affectionate terms, and the loss was evidently much felt by him. The book was published by White's brother Benjamin. His brother Thomas, who had been constantly urging the publication, if he were not its prime instigator, wrote (anonymously, of course) a review of
