1887 The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne

Description

Fine Binding, Illustrated, Leather Binding, Prize Binding

With numerous in-text monochrome illustrations. Gilbert White (1720 1793) was a pioneering naturalist and ornithologist. He is best known for his The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne (1789). This book was a compilation of 44 of his letters to Thomas Pennant, the leading British zoologist of the day, and 66 letters to the Hon. Daines Barrington, an English barrister and another Fellow of the Royal Society. In these letters, White detailed the natural history of the area around his family home at the vicarage of Selborne in Hampshire. These letters contained White's discoveries about local birds, animals and plants. He believed in distinguishing birds by observation rather than by collecting specimens, and was thus one of the first people to separate the similar-looking Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler and Wood Warbler by means of their song.