Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/586

550 W H I W H I and ways, the times and seasons, of plants and animals, com paring, for instance, the different ways in which the squirrel, the tield-inouse, and the nuthatch eat their hazel-nuts, or watches the migrations of birds, which were then only beginning to be properly recorded or understood, but he knows more than any other observer until Darwin about the habits and the usefulness of the earth worms, and is as certain as the latest physicists that plants distil dew and do not merely condense it. The book is also interesting as having appeared on the borderland between the mediaeval and the modem school of natural history, avoiding the uncritical blundering of the old Encyclopedists, without entering on the technical and analytic character of the opening age of separate monographs. Moreover, as the first book which raised natural history into the region of literature, much as the Compleat Angler did for that gentle art, we must affiliate to it the more finished products of later writers like Thoreau or Jefferies. Yet, while these are essential merits of the book, its endearing charm lies deeper, in the sweet and kindly personality of the author, who on his rambles gathers no spoil, but watches the birds and field-mice without disturbing them from their nests, and quietly plants an acorn where he thinks an oak is wanted, or sows beech-nuts in what is now a stately row. He overflows with anecdotes, seldom indeed gets beyond the anecdotal stage, yet from this all study of nature must begin ; and he sees everywhere intelligence and beauty, love and sociality, where a later view of nature insists primarily on mere adaptation of interests or purely competitive struggles. The en cyclopedic interest in nature, although in White s day culminat ing in the monumental synthesis of Buffon, was also disappearing before the analytic specialism inaugurated by Linnrcus ; yet the catholic interests of the simple naturalist of Selborue fully reappear a century later in the greater naturalist of Down. WHITE, JOSEPH BLANCO (1775-1841), author, was born at Seville on lltb. July 1775. He was educated for the Roman Catholic priesthood ; but after his ordination doubts as to the principles of Catholicism led him to escape from Spain to England (1810), where he ulti mately entered the Established Church, having studied theology at Oxford and made the friendship of Arnold, Newman, and Whately. He became tutor in the family of the last-named when he was made archbishop of Dublin (1831). While in this position he embraced Unitarian views ; and he found an asylum amongst the Unitarians of Liverpool, where he died on 20th May 1841. His principal writings are Doblado s Letters from Spain, 1822 ; Evidence against Catholicism, 1825 ; Second Travels of an Irish Gentleman in Search of a Religion, 1834 ; Observations on Heresy and Orthodoxy, 1835. They all show literary ability, and were extensively read in their day. It is probable that his name will be longest known in the world of letters by his sonnet addressed To Night (" Mysterious night ! when our first parent knew "), which has found its way into almost all the recent anthologies, and was spoken of by his contemporaries, Hunt and Coleridge, as one of the finest in English or indeed in any language. See Life of the Rev. Joseph Blanco White, written, by himself, with portions of his Correspondence, edited by John Hamilton Thorn, London, 1845. WHITE, ROBERT (1645-1704), engraver and draughts man, was born in London in 1645. He studied engraving under David Loggan, for whom he executed many architec tural subjects ; his early works also include landscapes and engraved title-pages for books. He acquired great skill in portraiture, his works of this class being commonly drawn with the black-lead pencil upon vellum, and after wards excellently engraved in line. Portraits executed in this manner he marked " ad vivum," and they are prized by collectors for their artistic merit and their authenticity. Virtue catalogued 275 portrait engravings by White, in cluding the likenesses of many of the most celebrated per sonages of his day ; and nine portraits engraved in mezzo tint are assigned to him by J. Chaloner Smith. White died at Bloomsbury, London, in 1704. His son, George White, who was born about 1671 and died about 1734, is also known as an engraver and portrait-painter. WHITEBAIT, the vernacular name of a small Clupeoid fish which appears in large shoals in the estuary of the Thames during the summer months, and is held in great esteem as a delicacy for the table. As to whether or not it is a distirct form, the opinions of naturalists have been divided ever since their attention was directed to the question. Pennant and Shaw believed it to be some kind of Cyprinoid fish, similar to the bleak, whilst Donovan, in his Natural History of British Fishes (1802-8), misled by specimens sent to him as whitebait, declared it to be the young of the shad. In 1820 Yarrell proved conclu sively that Donovan s opinion was founded upon an error; unfortunately he contented himself with comparing white bait with the shad only, and in the end adopted the opinion of the Thames fishermen, whose interest it was to represent it as a distinct adult form ; thus the whitebait is introduced into Yarrell s History of British Fishes (1836) as Clupea alba. The French ichthyologist Valenciennes went a step further, declaring it to be not only specifically but also generically distinct from all other Clupeoids. On ex amining the specimens of Clupea alba which passed from YaiTell s collection into the British Museum, the present writer found them to be the young of the common her ring (Catal. Fish. Brit. Mus., vii. p. 416, 1868); and this conclusion was fully borne out by visits to the Thames boats and by an examination of their captures on the spot. The bulk of the whitebait caught consists, in May and June, chiefly of the fry of herring, mixed with a number of shrimps, gobies, sticklebacks, pipe-fishes, young flounders, and an occasional sprat. But, the Thames being unequal to the supply of the large demand for this delicacy, large quantities of whitebait are now brought to London and other markets from many parts of the coast. They fre quently consist of a much greater proportion of young sprats than the fish obtained from the Thames ; and they sometimes prove a valuable mine for the collector, who may find mixed with them pelagic animals (such as the smaller kinds of Cephalopoda) which are not at all, or but rarely, met with at the mouth of the Thames or on the south coast generally. In times past whitebait were considered to be peculiar to the estuary of the Thames ; and, even after the specific identification of Thames white bait with the young of the herring from other localities, it was still thought that there was a distinctive superiority in the condition and flavour of the former. It is possible that the young herrings find in the estuary of the Thames a larger amount of suitable food than on other parts of the coast, where the, water may be of greater purity, but possesses less abundance of the minute animal life on which whitebait thrive. Indeed, Thames whitebait which have been compared with young herrings from the mouth of the Exe, the Cornish coast, Menai Strait, and the Firth of Forth seemed to be better fed; but, of course, the specific characteristics of the herring, into which we need not enter here, were nowise modified. The fry of fishes is used as an article of diet in almost every country : in Germany the young of various species of Cyprinoids, in Italy and Japan the young of nearly every fish capable of being readily captured in sufficient numbers, in the South Sea Islands the fry of Tcuthis. in New Zealand young Galaxias are consumed at certain seasons in large quantities ; and, like whitebait, these fry bear distinct names, different from those of the adult fish. Whitebait fishing in the Thames lasts from the end of March to September. The majority of the fish caught at the beginning of spring are about two inches long ; as the season advances the pro portion of larger specimens becomes greater, although very small ones occur abundantly throughout the season, thus apparently confirming the opinion of those who maintain that the herring is in its spawning not bound to any particular month. Whitebait are caught on the flood-tide from boats moored in from 3 to 5 fathoms of water. The net used is a bag some 20 feet long, narrow and small-meshed towards the tail-end, the mouth being kept open in the direction of the advancing tide by a framework 3 or 4 feet square. It is placed alongside the boat and sunk to a depth of 4 feet below the surface ; from time to time the end of the bag is lifted into the boat, to empty it of its contents. The "schools" of whitebait, advancing and retiring with the tide- for days and probably for weeks, have to run the gauntlet of a,

dozen of these nets, and therefore get very much thinned in nuni-