Five-minute digest
The Natural History of Selborne
Summary
The Natural History of Selborne is a book of letters about one Hampshire parish, written by its curate over about twenty years to two learned correspondents: the zoologist Thomas Pennant and the lawyer and antiquary Daines Barrington. White opens with the place itself: its position among the chalk downs and sandy heaths of east Hampshire, its soils, springs and beech hanger, the deep hollow lanes worn into the rock, the forest of Wolmer and its decayed deer. He then turns to what he can watch from his own garden and walks. Season after season he records birds, insects, reptiles and mammals with dates, weights and measurements: when the first swallow appears, how the swift differs in its habits from the swallow and house-martin, how the fern-owl or nightjar takes beetles on the wing, how rooks, owls and cuckoos behave. Some observations were new to English science. He distinguished three species of willow-wren, today's chiffchaff, willow warbler and wood warbler, chiefly by their songs; described the harvest mouse, which he weighed against a halfpenny as the smallest quadruped in the island; and described a great bat then unnamed in England, now known as the noctule. A recurring question is what becomes of swallows in winter: White collects reports of birds found torpid, notes late broods, and keeps both migration and winter hiding open, judging carefully by evidence. Later letters range more widely: the old tortoise that he inherited and watched for years as a weather-glass, the echo near the village, the use of rushes dipped in fat as candles by cottagers, a boy who spent his summers catching bees, a hare reared by a cat, earthworms as great promoters of vegetation, great frosts, the hail storm and the summer haze of 1783. Throughout, White writes as a Christian observer who sees Providence in the order of creatures, and as a patient scientist who prefers a careful local account to sweeping theory. His closing note commends the study of one place well examined, since all nature is so full that the district most examined yields the greatest variety. The book has been reprinted continuously since 1789.
Top Lessons
Attention as a discipline
White teaches by example that knowledge comes from long, careful attention to one place. He dates, weighs, measures and returns to the same creatures season after season.
Evidence before conclusions
On the winter fate of swallows White gathers reports, tests them and keeps an open mind. He prefers to say he does not yet know rather than accept a story he cannot verify.
Small creatures matter
White argues that earthworms, though they seem a despicable link in the chain of nature, would leave a lamentable chasm if lost. The book trains readers to honor the humble parts of creation.
Creation and Providence
White sees the creatures as works of a wise Creator, even when, as with the sleeping tortoise, their design puzzles him. His piety and his science sit comfortably together.
Verified Quotes
“The parish of Selborne lies in the extreme eastern corner of the county of Hampshire, bordering on the county of Sussex, and not far from the county of Surrey”
Frequently cited
“all nature is so full, that that district produces the greatest variety which is the most examined”
“I suppose they are the smallest quadrupeds in this island”
Frequently cited
“Earth-worms, though in appearance a small and despicable link in the chain of nature, yet, if lost, would make a lamentable chasm”
“Thus not only ‘the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass has master’s crib,’* but the most abject reptile and torpid of beings distinguishes the hand that feeds it, and is touched with the feelings of gratitude”
Frequently cited
“it is a matter of wonder to find that Providence should bestow such a profusion of days, such a seeming waste of longevity, on a reptile that appears to relish it so little as to squander more than two-thirds of its existence in a joyless stupor”
“No two birds can differ more in their notes, and that constancy, than those two that I am acquainted with; for the one has a joyous, easy, laughing note; the other a harsh loud chirp”
Medical Lens
The book is natural history, but it touches daily health and village life: White notes that Selborne's damp, wooded situation is nonetheless free of agues, describes the harvest-bug whose bites raise intolerably itching tumours, records how cottagers make rushlights, and describes with sympathy a boy of very limited understanding who lived for catching bees. His weather records, including the haze and heat of 1783, are an early form of the environmental observation later used in public health.
- To Pennant, Letter V
White notes that the village, though surrounded by trees and damp, is healthy and free from agues.
- To Pennant, Letter XXXIV
The harvest-bug's bites raise tumours that itch intolerably on those who walk in the grass in summer.
- To Barrington, Letter XXVII
A village boy of very limited understanding spent summers catching bees and sucking their honey-bags, torpid by the fire in winter.
- To Barrington, Letter LXV
White records the strange haze, heat and storms of the summer of 1783 and their effects in the parish.