The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2, by
Gilbert White, Edited by Henry Morley

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Title: The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2

Author: Gilbert White

Editor: Henry Morley

Release Date: March 29, 2007 [eBook #20934]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE,
VOL. 2***

This eBook was transcribed by Les Bowler.

CASSELL'S NATIONAL LIBRARY.

THE
NATURAL HISTORY
OF
SELBORNE.

BY
THE REV. GILBERT WHITE, A.M.

VOL. II.

CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED:
_LONDON_, _PARIS_, _NEW YORK & MELBOURNE_.
1887.

INTRODUCTION.

Gilbert White's home in the quiet Hampshire village of Selborne is an old
family house that has grown by additions, and has roofs of nature's
colouring, and creeping plants on walls that have not been driven by
scarcity of ground to mount into the air. The house is larger, by a
wing, now than when White lived in it. A little wooded park, that
belongs to it, extends to a steep hill, "The Hanger," clothed with a
hanging wood of beech. The Hanger and the slope of Nore Hill place the
village in a pleasant shelter. A visit to Selborne can be made by a walk
of a few miles from Alton on the South Western Railway. It is a country
walk worth taking on its own account.

The name, perhaps, implies that the place is wholesome. It was a village
in Anglo-Saxon times. Its borne or burn is a brook that has its spring
at the head of the village, and "sael" meant prosperity or health of the
best. It is the "sel" in the German "Selig" and the "sil" in our
"silly," which once represented in the best sense well-being of the
innocent. So our old poets talk of "seely sheep;" but as the guileless
are apt prey to the guileful, silliness came to mean what "blessed
innocenc