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| English
naturalist and cleric. He was the author of The Natural History and Antiquities
of Selborne 1789, which records the flora and fauna of an area of Hampshire. White studied at Oxford. Although assigned to parishes elsewhere, he chose to live in his native Selborne. White's book is based on a diary of his observations and on letters to two naturalist friends over a period of about 20 years. Elegantly written, The Natural History contains descriptions of rural life and acute observations of a wide variety of natural-history subjects, such as the migration of swallows, the recognition of three distinct species of British leaf warblers, and the identification of the harvest mouse and the noctule bat as British species. White also wrote Calendar of Flora and the Garden 1765, an account of observations he made in his garden in 1751, and Naturalist's Journal (begun in 1768). |