White's Selborne for Boys and Girls

By Gilbert White and Marcus Woodward

“White's Selborne for Boys and Girls” is a classic guide to the birds of Britain, originally written for children. It offers the reader interesting and entertaining anecdotes interlaced with facts and observations from an expert. This wonderfully-written guide is perfect for introducing children to birds and bird watching, and it will also be of interest to adults with an interest in the topic. Contents include: “Approach to the Village”, “Raven”, “Hind”, “Swift”, “Peregrine Falcon”, “Snipe”, “Hoopoe”, “Bat”, “Harvest Mice”, “Chaffinch”, “Grey Wagtail”, “Weasel”, “Willow-Wren”, “Stone Curlew”, “Viper”, “Green Sandpiper”, “Jackdaw”, “Ring-Ousel”, “Nightingale”, “Chough”, “Wood-Lark”, etc. Many vintage books such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially-commissioned new introduction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: A Thousand Fields
• Release date: Jan 31, 2018
• ISBN: 9781528784221

Book preview

WHITE’S SELBORNE

FOR BOYS AND GIRLS

CHAPTER I

NOTE.—Gilbert White’s text is distinguished from the Editor’s introductory notes by the following sign, ¶.

THE parish I live in is a very abrupt uneven country, full of hills and woods, and therefore full of birds.

Selborne is changed since Mr. White penned these words, but is still full of the birds which were his well-loved parishioners.

South-west of the village rises the Hanger, a three- hundred-foot high hill with its hanging wood of beeches, the most lovely of all forest trees. In May the tender young leaves shine as with an inner green light of their own; and in October, when they are in the glory of bronze and copper tones, when the bracken is old-gold and the thorns are laden with glowing fruits, we understand what Mr. White meant when he said, that if a landscape painter were faithfully to set their colours on canvas, the objection would be made that they were beyond Nature.

Mr. White partly made the path called the Zigzag which leads up the Hanger to the Wishing Stone he set up, where the great view is seen, bounded by the South Downs, with the waters of Wolmer Pond gleaming in the distance, and Nore Hill standing out boldly. Or the track may be taken called the Bostal, an old Sussex and Hampshire word for a road up the hills. At all seasons, the naturalist would wander through the Hanger and along the down, or sheepwalk, known as Selborne Common, watching the leaves as they came and went, the birds and the flowers. The down is still a pleasing park-like spot, and runs from the top of the Hanger to the village of Newton Valence, about a mile away. Here, among the rabbits and the pheasants, we are back in the quiet days of the eighteenth century. The down gave Mr White many notes. Here he heard the nightjars crooning through summer evenings, and the stone- curlew calling at night. On an autumn day of 1778 he noted, Near forty, ravens have been playing about all day. Alas! that the ravens and the raven-trees are no more. It was on the common that he tested the echoes, and studied the subject of dew-ponds, and how they are kept filled with water, as if by the dews of heaven. Over the common he would go to visit his friend, Richard Yalden, Vicar of Newton Valence, who would sometimes visit him to drink a dish of tea. Mr. Yalden knew the twofold note of the chiffchaff as he had heard it on the common.

Down in the sheltered vale, in the straggling street of Selborne, cottages still stand with their little chips of sandstone in the mortar, suggesting tenpenny-nails. Now, as a hundred and sixty years ago, the village shelters many poor persons, though perhaps the women no longer weed the corn in summer, and it is not now worth remarking that the cottages have glass in their windows. In those days glass windows were taxed by Parliament, and were luxuries.

Visiting the house where the naturalist lived, and wrote the history of his parish which will keep his name green for all time, we see his garden and his sundial, and where he stood when he watched a pair of honey-buzzards as they nested on a slender beech near the middle of the Hanger; and where he once saw a pair of hoopoes; and where the nightjars amused him in the summer evenings, as they hunted for cockchafers. Within the house he died, full of years, having passed his days with scarcely any chances or changes to trouble him, other than those of the weather. The serenity of evening peace in Selborne seems to reflect the long life he spent here, in gladness and singleness of heart.

Near the old church is the playground called the Plestor. Even in Saxon times the need of a play-place for children was remembered by their elders, and this space was reserved for their games. A story clings about the Plestor. In olden times there lived in Selborne a Sir Adam Gordon who, as he grew old, began to think about the future of his soul. It was his wish that after his death good people should pray for his soul, and to this end, in the year 1271, he granted to the prior and convent of Selborne this land, as a place of play for the young.

Flowers grow at Selborne exactly where they were found by Mr. White. In the Hanger, the plant called stinking hellebore still blooms in January: The good women, he noted, give the leaves powdered to children. Early in the year the pink flowers of the mezereon appear about the village, as they formerly were found in the Hanger, and everywhere the spurge laurel abounds. Still in the Hanger grow the autumn gentian, the curious bird’s-nest orchis, and the orchis, lady’s-tresses, with pure white, fragrant flowers. There may still be truffles, as in the former days, and in my time I have talked to a truffle-hunter who would seek them out in Hampshire woods, but by now truffle-hunters may have died out.

One of Mr. White’s favourite walks was down the valley path from the churchyard to Priory Farm, about a mile distant, where stood the old priory or convent, the subject of one of his poems:

Adown the vale, in lone, sequester’d nook,

Where skirting woods imbrown the dimpling brook,

The ruin’d convent lies.

In damper parts of the vale are the rushes of which candles formerly were made. There are hollow lanes more like watercourses than roads.

In the churchyard of Selborne stands the old yew-tree whereunder Mr. White’s faithful flock must often have gathered. The tree measured in his day twenty-three feet in girth, and is now above twenty-five feet round. Mr. White did not approve of burials within the church, and it was his wish that his body should be laid at rest in the churchyard, in as plain and private a way as possible, without any pall-bearers or parade. Six honest labouring men carried him to his grave, and to these he left the sum of ten shillings each for their trouble. The grave, the fifth one from the north wall of the chancel, is marked by a headstone with the inscription, G. W., 26 June, 1793, and is but a slight heave in the turf. Daisies bloom, and the grasses wave about his resting-place. Standing there, we recall what is almost the sole personal testimony to his good life which has been handed down to us, the saying of an old family nurse, that he was a still, quiet body, and There wusn’t a bit of harm in him, I’ll assure ye, sir—there wusn’t, indeed.

APPROACH TO THE VILLAGE.

THE PARISH OF SELBORNE

Selborne—The Hanger and the Sheep-Down—The Plestor, or Play-Place—Famous Trees—The Raven Tree—The Forest Stone—Hollow Lanes—"We Abound with Poor"

¶ 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.

¶ The high part to the south-west consists of a vast hill of chalk, rising three hundred feet above the village, and is divided into a sheep-down, the high wood, and a long hanging wood, called the Hanger. The covert is beech, the most lovely of all forest trees, whether we consider its smooth bark, its glossy foliage, or graceful boughs. The down is a pleasing park-like spot, of about one mile by half that space, jutting out on the verge of the hill- country, where it begins to break down into the plains, and commanding a view of hill, dale, woodlands, heath, and water. The prospect is bounded to the south-east and east by the vast range of the Sussex Downs; by Guild-down, near Guildford, and by the Downs round Dorking and Rygate in Surrey, to the north-east, which altogether, with the country beyond Alton and Farnham, form a noble and extensive outline.

¶ At the foot of this hill, one stage or step from the uplands, lies the village, which consists of one single straggling street, three-quarters of a mile in length, in a sheltered vale. At each end of the village arises a small rivulet. Our wells run to about sixty-three feet, and, when sunk to that depth, seldom fail.

¶ In the centre of the village, and near the church, is a square piece of ground, surrounded by houses, and called the Plestor.

¶ In the midst of this spot stood, in olden times, a vast oak, with a short, squat body, and huge arms. This venerable tree, surrounded with stone steps, and seats above them, was the delight of old and young, and a place of much resort in summer evenings, where the former sat in grave debate, while the latter frolicked and danced before them. Long might it have stood, had not the amazing tempest in 1703 overturned it at once.

¶ A small wood, called Losel’s, was lately furnished with a set of oaks of a peculiar growth and great value. They were tall and taper like firs, but, standing near together, had very small heads—only a little brush, without any large limbs. The bridge near Hampton Court, being much decayed, some trees were wanted for the repairs, that were fifty feet long without bough, and would measure twelve inches diameter at the little end. Twenty such trees did a purveyor find in this little wood. These trees were sold for £20 a-piece.

¶ In the centre of this grove there stood an oak, which bulged out about the middle of the stem. On this a pair of ravens had fixed their residence for such a series of years, that the oak was distinguished by the title of the Raven Tree. Many were the attempts of youths to get at this eyrie. But when they arrived at the swelling, it jutted out so in their way, and was so far beyond their grasp, that the most daring lads were awed. So the ravens built on, nest upon nest, in perfect security, till the fatal day arrived in which the wood was to be levelled. It was in the month of February, when those birds usually sit. The saw was applied to the butt, the wedges were inserted into the opening, the woods echoed to the heavy blows of the beetle or mallet, the tree nodded to its fall; but still the dam sat on. At last, when it gave way, the bird was flung from her nest, and was whipped down by the twigs, which brought her dead to the ground.

RAVEN.

¶ The stone of this place is in great request for hearthstones and the beds of ovens. When chiselled smooth, it makes elegant fronts for houses. Decent chimney- pieces are worked from it; and rooms are floored with it.

¶ In Wolmer Forest I see but one sort of stone, called by the workmen sand or forest stone. This is generally of the colour of rusty iron; is very hard and heavy. Being often found in broad, flat pieces, it makes good pavement for paths about houses, never becoming slippery in frost or rain, and is sometimes used in buildings.

¶ From a notion of rendering their work the more elegant, and giving it a finish, masons chip this stone into small fragments about the size of the head of a large nail, and then stick the pieces into the wet mortar along the joints of their freestone walls. This has occasioned strangers sometimes to ask us pleasantly, Whether we fastened our walls together with tenpenny-nails?

¶ Two rocky hollow lanes, one to Alton, and the other to the forest, deserve our attention. These roads are by the traffic of ages, and the fretting of water, worn down so that they look more like water-courses than roads. In many places they are sixteen to eighteen feet beneath the level of the fields, and after floods, and in frosts, exhibit grotesque appearances, from the tangled roots, and from the torrents rushing down their broken sides, when those cascades are frozen into icicles, hanging in all the fanciful shapes of frost-work. These rugged, gloomy scenes affright the ladies, when they peep down into them from the paths above, and make timid horsemen shudder while they ride along them, but delight the naturalist with their various botany, and particularly with their curious ferns.

¶ The manor of Selborne, were it strictly looked after, would swarm with game. Hares, partridges, and pheasants, abound, and in old days woodcocks were as plentiful. After harvest, some few land-rails are seen.

¶ We abound with poor, many of whom are sober and industrious, and live comfortably, in good stone or brick cottages, which are glazed, and have chambers above stairs: mud buildings we have none. Besides the employment from husbandry, the men work in hop gardens, of which we have many, and fell and bark timber. In the spring and summer the women weed the corn, and enjoy a second harvest in September by hop-picking. Formerly, in the dead months, they availed themselves greatly by spinning wool, for making barragons, a genteel corded stuff, much in vogue at that time for summer wear, and chiefly manufactured at Alton, a neighbouring town, by some of the people called Quakers.

¶ The inhabitants enjoy a good share of health, and the parish swarms with children.

CHAPTER II

ONCE a forest, Wolmer had been cleared of trees by Mr. White’s time, though the waste land was to be enclosed and planted later. Ashdown Forest, in Sussex, is another example of a forest which gave way to moorland, the trees having been cut down to feed the furnaces, when iron was being smelted in those parts. Mr. White was interested in what he called subterranean trees, of which remains are found in most marshes, sometimes preserved in a perfect state, at great depths. An old-time editor of the Selborne letters notes that in the Highlands, the Scotch fir abounds (in marshes), and retains so much resin as to be used for lights during winter, for which purpose it is dug out, dried, and split into narrow lengths. Another editor remarked that he possessed a snuff-box which had belonged to Sir Walter Scott, having the inscription, Oak found near Gordon Castle, twenty feet below the surface of the ground. So old was the wood, that it had turned to a hard substance resembling agate.

Like the trees, the blackgame were introduced again to the Forest after Mr. White’s time, but have not flourished. Farther west, on the moorlands of Devon, the birds hold their own, while limited numbers of red grouse are to be found on Dartmoor. The blackcock, or black grouse, as the male of the blackgame is called (the female being the grayhen), is a magnificent bird, with glossy black plumage and a beautiful lyre-shaped tail, white feathers gleaming in the notch, where the long feathers divide, curving outwards. The female lacks this ornament, and is soberly clad in brown.

To find the noble red deer in England to-day, we must go to Exmoor, where alone they survive as wild animals, having been preserved for the sport of stag-hunters. Mr. White’s notes about the red deer take us back a long way, for the great-grandfather of the keeper Adams, mentioned in the letters, was alive in 1635. The red deer is our largest and noblest wild animal; and it is small wonder that when one of the honest keepers, Adams, paraded before Queen Anne a herd five hundred strong, Her Majesty observed them with great complacency and satisfaction.

Many stories tell how faithful are red deer to their native heaths. One editor of the Letters relates that a Duke of Atholl wished to increase the stock of red deer in his park, and lured them from the mountains to the park in a severe winter by laying a trail of food. Having followed the trail, the deer were enclosed, and, finding that they were denied their freedom, soon began to pine, so that in two years not one was left alive.

Mr. White did not much lament the passing of the red deer from Wolmer Forest, because their presence was a constant temptation to deer-stealers; besides, he considered the damage done by deer to farmers’ crops. To this day, on Exmoor, the red deer will raid cornfields to eat the golden ears, and by pulling up turnips may ruin a field in a night.

The enclosing of such a forest as Wolmer meant a great loss to poor men living thereon, as the Forest had always supplied work, such as cutting peat for fuel, or heather for brooms when other work was slack. Mr. White notes that by a law of the days of William and Mary, anyone who burnt the heather was liable to be punished by whipping and imprisonment.

The names of the three lakes of the Forest, Hogmer, Cranmer, and Wolmer, are links with other wild creatures which have vanished, if it be true that they are derived from those of the hog, or wild boar, the crane, and the wolf, suggesting that these animals and birds were at home in the Forest in olden days. The name Wolmer is traced to Wolf-mere.

In Mr. White’s time, a landowner had turned out some German wild boars and sows on his land, to the great terror of the neighbourhood, for there are few more dangerous animals. He also turned out a wild bull, or buffalo; but they were destroyed by the country people.

A remarkable discovery was made in the bed of Wolmer Pond, in Mr. White’s time, of ancient copper coins (some of which he owned) and medallions dating from the time of the Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius.

WOLMER FOREST

A Royal Forest—Fossil Wood—A Haunt of Wild Fowl—Blackgame—A Noble Herd of Red Deer.

¶ The royal Forest of Wolmer is a tract of land of about seven miles in length, by two and a half in breadth. This royalty consists entirely of sand, covered with heath and fern, but is diversified with hills and dales, without having one standing tree in the whole extent. In the bottoms, where the waters stagnate, are many bogs, which formerly abounded with subterraneous trees. I have seen cottages on the verge of this wild district, whose timbers consisted of a black hard wood, looking like oak, which the owners assured me they procured from the bogs by probing the soil with spits. Besides the oak, I have been shown pieces of fossil-wood.

¶ This lonely domain is a very agreeable haunt for many sorts of wild fowls, which not only frequent it in the winter, but breed there in the summer: such as lapwings, snipes, wild-ducks, and teals. Partridges in vast plenty are bred in good seasons on the verge of this forest, into which they love to make excursions.

¶ But there was a nobler species of game in this forest, and that was the heath-cock, or blackgame. When I was a little boy, I recollect one coming now and then to my father’s table.

¶ Another beautiful link in the chain of beings is wanting—I mean the red deer, which, toward the beginning of this century, amounted to about five hundred head, and made a stately appearance.

¶ There is an old keeper named Adams, whose greatgrandfather, grandfather, father and self, enjoyed the head-keepership of Wolmer Forest in succession for more than a hundred years. This person assures me, that his father has often told him that Queen Anne, as she was journeying on the Portsmouth road, did not think the Forest of Wolmer beneath her royal regard. Reposing herself on a bank, smoothed for that purpose, lying about half a mile to the east of Wolmer Pond, and still called Queen’s Bank, she saw with great complacency and satisfaction the whole herd of red deer brought by the keepers along the vale before her, consisting then of about five hundred head, a sight worthy the attention of the greatest sovereign.

¶ Our old race of deer-stealers are hardly extinct yet. It was but a little while ago that over their ale they used to recount the exploits of their youth—such as watching the hind to her lair; the shooting of one of their neighbours with