EHN

Blackcap

LETTER I.1

To the Honourable Daines Barrington.

SELBORNE, June 30th, 1769. EAR SIR,-When I was in town last month I partly engaged that I would sometime do myself the honour to write to you on the subject of natural history; and I am the more ready to fulfil my promise, because I see you are a gentleman of great candour, and one that will make allowances; especially where the writer professes to be an out-door naturalist, one that takes his observations from the subject itself, and not from the writings of others.

1 The letters to Daines Barrington were printed in the first edition separately from those to Pennant, being arranged as a second part and disposed consecutively. Many subsequent editors have seen fit to rearrange both sets according to dates, interlarding these with those to Pennant. I do not think this procedure tends either to clearness or accuracy. The reader does not always notice the superscription of the individual letter, nor can he easily bear in mind the particular "you" addressed on each occasion. Moreover, the whole character of the letters in the second series is different from that of the letters in the first. Pennant was a naturalist who wrote to White mainly for practical informa

THE FOLLOWIng is a List of the Summer Birds of Passage
WHICH I HAVE DISCOVERED IN THIS NEIGHBOURHOOD,
RANGED SOMEWHAT IN THE ORDER IN WHICH THEY
APPEAR1:-
:-

tion: Barrington was a dilettante theorist who generally desired confirmation of his often hasty and sometimes inaccurate à priori ideas. It is, therefore, undesirable to mix up the two sets, both because of the difference of their original scope, and also because, in White's own judgment, it was best to keep the personalities separate. Daines Barrington (1727-1800) was the fourth son of the first Lord Barrington, and was a barrister by profession. A dabbler in many directions, he was a person of importance in his own day, but is now chiefly remembered through these letters.-ED. 1 In this list I have not attempted to give the accepted modern scientific names. In most cases the English name sufficiently designates the birds intended for all who wish to identify them. Where there is doubt, as in the case of the so-called "wild goose," or the largest willow-wren, it is not easy to decide which is the exact species that White intended. Moreover, the question is purely otiose. The nomenclature of ornithology is a very difficult subject, and no two writers are quite agreed as to the identification of early descriptions.-ED.