GILBERT WHITE'S "CALENDAR OF FLORA." *
HERE is a book which is well worth publishing. It is the original form of the Calendar of Flora, which Gilbert White
compiled for the year 1766, and is described by him on the back of his title-page as " Flora Selborniensis: with some coincidences of the coming and departure of birds of passage
and insects, and the appearing of Reptiles." Most readers of modern editions of The Natural History of Selborne are familiar with the calendar bound up with the Letters, which is really a series of extracts from White's journals put together after his death in 1793 by Dr. Aikin, of Warrington. The 1766 calendar is something different. It may be regarded, indeed, as the basis on which the Natural History was com- piled. Gilbert White, in a letter to Pennant, dated July 19th, 1771, says, in reference to the possibility of publishing a book, that if he were to attempt anything it would be a sort of natural history of his parish, " an arum historico-naturalls, comprising a journal for one whole year, and illustrated with large notes and observations." He seems, however, to have been deterred from publishing a book in this form owing to the fact—rather oddly unimportant—that Dr. Aikin anticipated him by publishing a book on some- thing of the same lines intended for children between the ages of ten and fourteen. If he had proceeded with his idea he would doubtless have worked from the 1766 calendar, and it is that probability, or rather certainty, which adds a "particular interest to the present publication, which is a facsimile of the journal on large paper. There is a peculiar charm in turning over these pages of clear, pointed hand- writing and in reading the entries which blow the very breath of spring and summer to us from the Selborne study table of a hundred and forty-six years ago. Some of the entries have on interest which could only belong to an original manuscript, and give us an insight not only into the stage which obser- vation of the habits of birds had reached in White's time, but into the character of White himself. On March 3rd, for instance, we read " The wryneek, lynx, pipes : alias Torquilla." An entry, evidently interpolated later in the year immediately below, runs : " This was only the black-headed titmouse, Pants major." To-day we should know that it would be in the highest degree unlikely that a bird heard as early as March 3rd would be the wryneck, though there are instances on record of the wryneck staying with us throUgh the winter.. But the entry is illuminating. It was White who set the example for all who came after him of verifying every fact he recorded and of honestly correcting his mistakes.
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