income, and the calls which some members of his family made upon his generosity, he was able to use hospitality, and relatives and friends were from time to time entertained by him.
In August 1772 his brother John, whom he calls his most constant correspondent—though few of his letters have been preserved—returned from Gibraltar, and his only son, born in 1759, a promising lad, who had preceded his father to England, was received at Selborne, where he became a favourite with his uncle Gilbert. White read Horace with him, and generally looked after his education; while 'Jack,' as the nephew was commonly called, acted as his amanuensis and made himself generally useful. Even laming his uncle's horse did not ruffle the owner's temper, and Jack subsequently justified the good opinion formed of him, settling at Salisbury in medical practice. The terms on which he was with his other nephew, Sam Barker, and his hitherto unpublished correspondence with his niece Mary ('Molly'), the daughter of Thomas, who afterwards married her cousin Benjamin, the son of Benjamin, strongly show his affection for his family.
Turning to the life which White led as a naturalist the life which especially entitles him to distinction—we find that in 1751 he began to keep a 'Garden Kalendar' on sheets of small letter-paper stitched together. This he continued until 1767, after which year he adopted a more elaborate form, a 'Naturalist's Journal,' invented and supplied to him by Daines Barrington [q. v.], and printed by Benjamin White, a copy being each year prepared for filling in by an observer. Both of these diaries, for so they may be called, are now in the library of the British Museum; but though each has been cursorily inspected by naturalists, and certain excerpts were printed from the former by Bell (ii. 348-59), and from the latter by Dr. John Aikin (1747-1822) [q. v.] in 1795, and in 1834 by Jesse (Gleanings in Nat. Hist., 2nd ser. pp. 144-80), who gave also a facsimile reproduction of one of its pages (18-24 June 1775), neither seems to have been studied by a competent zoologist. Yet a close examination of these documents is absolutely needed to attain a true knowledge of White's life. That he was a born naturalist none will dispute; in his earliest letter to Pennant (10 Aug. 1767) he says he was attached to natural knowledge from his childhood; but it is no less certain that the habit of observation and reflection on what he observed grew upon him daily. It has been suggested (Saturday Review, 24 Sept. 1887) that he, like Robert Marsham, the correspondent of his closing days, acquired from Stephen Hales [q. v.], the rector of the neighbouring Faringdon, who was well known to White himself, his father, and grandfather (letter to Marsham, 13 Aug. 1790), 'the taste for observing and recording periodic natural phenomena.' This may have been so, though from his own statement it is not likely. In the letter to Pennant just mentioned White lamented throughout life 'the want of a companion to quicken my industry and sharpen my attention.' The 'Miscellaneous Tracts' of Benjamin Stillingfleet [q. v.] are often cited with approval by White, and their publication in 1759 must have encouraged him to pursue the course he had early adopted; while still later the five little annual volumes of Scopoli (1769-1772), which he was fond of quoting, must have had the same effect. There is abundant proof that in his youth he was an enthusiastic sportsman, although at the same time a reflective one (cf. his letter No. xxiii. to Barrington). So keen was he in his undergraduate days at Oxford, as one of Mulso's letters (16 Aug. 1780) reminds him, that he used to practise with his gun in summer, and fetch down migrant birds in order to steady his hand for the winter; and in early years to shoot woodcocks, even when paired, in March (Babington, Miscellanies, pp. 217, 218). It must by degrees have dawned on him that the kind of observation needed for the successful pursuit of sport, just as of horticulture, might be rendered more valuable by the study of plants and animals on a principle more or less methodical. Even in 1753 we find him (Bell, ii. 338) buying Ray's 'Synopsis Methodica Avium et Piscium,' and this was the book which, in regard to zoology, served him as his guide to the last, though he to some extent availed himself of the improvements introduced from time to time into systematic natural history by Linnaeus. Yet it would seem that he did not seriously take up the study of botany until 1766; but he then for the rest of his life pursued it to a good end.
White was in the habit of paying at least one annual visit to London, where his brothers Thomas and Benjamin were established. It may be inferred from his advice subsequently given to Ralph Churton (30 March 784) that he attended, as a visitor, many meetings of the Royal Society and of the Society of Antiquaries (ib. ii. 198). On his visits to London (which seem to have generally been early in the year) he met several men of high scientific position. He was there in the spring of 1767, and then, through
