BOOKS OF THE DAY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3912, 5 March 1929, Page 72

BOOKS OF THE DAY.

THE HISTORIAN OF SELBORNE.

“Gilbert White. Pioneer. Poet, and Stylist.” By Walter Johnson, F.G.S. (Cloth, Lss net.) London: John Murray.

There is a perennial charm about Gilbert White's "Natural History- of Selborne,” the charm of careful observation of nature recorded in an easy lucid style, with the revelation of a genial sympathetic personality. His is the first English book that combines scientific interest with literary- charm. He was an amateur of course, not a systematic scientific investigator, but he was one of the patient, first-hand students of nature whose observations form material for building up systematic natural science. As a writer he is much simpler and more objective than Richard Jefferies, and perhaps to some the second title accorded him by Mr Johnson may come as a surprise. Yet he actually paid considerable attention to poetical composition, and wrote a good deal of verse of the formal eighteenth-century style, for the most part quite uninspired, but marked by the same truthful observation of nature as his prose, and containing rare lines of poetic beauty. But his natural vehicle of expression 'was prose, and he lives by his “Selborne,” a true prose classic. To quote from Mr Johnson—

The book is a trusty companion for dull grey days and sleepless nights. On a winter evening a vision arises of thatched cottages with fast-closed doors, of copsewood fires of home-made rushlights, of countryfolk relating anew their beloved traditions and ghostly beliefs, or discanting on some discovery which must be carried to the parson next morning. . . . When sated with modern literature, dazed by scientific riddles, or bored by life's little inanities, some personal experience sends us back 10 times, 20 times, to find relief in the well-read volume which Richard Jefferies has well compared to an “ Old Master.”

Gilbert White’s quiet, uneventful life in the country- was not of a kind to tempt biographers; most people know him from his book only-, which gives a sufficiently clear impression of the man and his life; there are also his diaries and correspondence. No regular portrait of him is known, but Mr Johnson has reproduced two sketches of him as a young man, made on fly-leaves of his copy of Pope’s “ Iliad,” which it is interesting to note was given to him by the poet in the year 1743 on the occasion of White's taking his B.A. degree. Gilbert White w-as born at Selborne vicarage in 1720, his grandfather being then vicar, and he died there in 1793. We thus know him as a homely, kindhearted village curate, who lived and died a bachelor, and whose daily course was even and free from excitement. Being unambitious, he thought little of preferment, and Indeed refused tempting offers of preferment in order to remain in his beloved Selborne and study the natural history of a limited region. The trivial round was varied by occasional visits to other countries or by quiet festivities in his own domain. Among the much censured priests of the eighteenth century he stands out as a model parson, cheerful, full of. loving kindness, assiduously visiting his parishoners, especially the poor and sick, as an adviser and friend. Though a pluralist of a very mild kind, he strove to serve his parishes well and while curate of Newton Valance postponed a visit to his brother John in Lancashire, because he could not find a trustworthy substitute.

Mr Johnson examines and rebuts as without substantial foundation various criticisms which have been directed against Gilbert White, as that he was too fond of a gun for either a parson or a lover of animals, and that he was self-centred, taking no interest in the political movements of his time or in wider social interests. Certainly Gilbert White never spent much time in shooting, and, as he grew older he used a gun less and less.

In his consideration of Gilbert White as a pioneer naturalist Mr Johnson selects some of his most notable observations and opinions and compares them with what is known to-day.

It has often been thought strange that Gilbert White should have entertained the idea that swallows hibernate, or that some of them do, for though his knowledge about the ihigration habits of English birds was very- incomplete, he knew that many species including swallows did migrate. But he thought there was evidence that some members of the swallow family, chiefly house swallows and martins, stayed in England for the winter, hiding in holes in quarries or beneath the banks of streams and pools. His own search for these hiding swallows was never rewarded, and he admits that he does not regard stories of their having been found as fully proved; still he seems to cling to the belief. Mr Johnson considers that in this he was influenced by the old tradition coming down from Aristotle to Linnaeus that various species of birds went into hiding for the winter. Then the fact that some stragglers remain long after the main swallow flights have departed would confirm him in the belief. On the other hand Gilbert White’s observation established the fact that in the South of England ring-ouzels are true birds of passage. The portion of the book dealing with Gilbert White as a “stylist” (Mr Johnson dislikes the term but acknowledges its utility) is interesting to those with a literary- sense. One of the charms of Gilbert White’s writing at its best is its unstudied air. its choice of simple, telling words. Mr Johnson collects a large number of vivid bits of description of wild creatures and other things of Nature. Thus (the grasshopper warbler) : “ sings on the top of a twig, gaping and shivering its wings.” “ The green woodpecker seems to laugh at all the world.” Chiffchaffs, “no bigger than a man’s thumb, fetch an echo of the hangar at every note.” The flycatcher “ utters a little inward wailing note.” Tn hot weather “the tulips as soon as blown, gape for breath, and fade.” In threatening weather “ only- vast swagging, rocklike clouds appeared at a distance.” “ The vast, bloated, pollard hollow beeches, mentioned before, stood on the bare, naked end of a chalky promontory.” Gilbert White was a careful observer of the weather, and of all natural phenomena. He describes “the alarming meteors and tremendous thunderstorms ” of the summer of 1783, and especially the “peculiar haze or smokyfog” which prevailed for many weeks all over Europe and excited great alarm. He also records the earthquakes that devastated Sicily and southern Italy- that year, and mentions a volcano which “ sprang out of the sea off the coast of Norway,” and, though lie does not expressly connect the atmospheric and the volcanic phenomena, Mr Johnson considers it obvious that the association existed in his mind. He also cites passages to show that Gilbert White appreciated the slow but persistent action of factors of geological changes, as against the theory, general then and later, of earthquakes and cataclysms.

Mr Johnson has given us a very- complete book on Gilbert White which all •Selbornians will welcome.

FOR SPORTSMEN. -Twenty-five Years Big Game Hunting.” By Brigadier-general R. Bigot. (Cloth, 21s net.) London: Chatto and Windus.

To the philosopher and the socialist the spectacle of men of means and leisure wandering over the globe and penetrating the most inaccessible regions to hunt down and slay- wild creatures is often a subject of ironic comment. Have they nothing better to do than to kill without .ny ulterior motive of utility or scientific enlightenment? But there are sportsmen and sportsmen. With some the sufficient lure is to make a big bag, to shoot the greatest number of beasts or birds in the shortest time, or to bring down the biggest elephant or tiger or the finest headed stag on record. But with sportsmen of General Pigot’s class the lure is the pursuit itself, with the overcoming of all the difficulties entailed in it. He begins his book by distinguishing between the big game shooter and the big game hunter. The former, with no knowledge of the habits of wild animals, depend on native shikaris or white hunters to bring their quarry within aim of their guns; the true hunter does his own stalking and hunting. He makes his own arrangements for stores and transport:

Starts oft on his journey with the minimum of transport, yet has everything he wants, anti as his experience increases with

each succeeding shoot he Valies less and less on the advice of others, and reduces his expenditure each time.

Ibis is the record of a veteran big game hunter, and it keeps severely to its subject. There is no attempt at picturesque description; the regions traversed are described only- so far as to show difficulties of travel and other things that concern the hunter. Two chapters at the beginning of the volume are devoted ,to full directions about the hunter’s travelling equipment and his rifles; another to directions about .skinning and ],reserving the skins of the animals shot.

General Bigot lias h tinted elk in Norway, mouflon (wild sheep) in Sardinia, tigers in India and Eastern Siberia, caribou in Newfoundland, and last, red deer and wapiti in New Zealand.” It will seem strange to most readers to hear of tigers being hunted in wastes of ice and snow, the hunters travelling in sleighs along frozen rivers. General Bigot is disposed to think that the tiger and many- of the larger animals of'the tropical East were originally denizens of Siberia and Manchuria, and as the climate grew colder were driven southwards. The Northern tiger has more white about the body and a longer coat than the Indian one. At present. General Bigot thinks, conditions are too rigorous for these Northern tigers, and they are fast dying out, owing to the scarcity of animals to serve as food for them. The Cossacks of the Amur hunt the tiger with dogs. With Cossack helpers the General had a strenuous three days’ hunt after one tiger, which at last got away after having managed to make a meal of one of the dogs by night. It was a keen disappointment, but —

The only consolation was that it I had killed the tiger when I first saw it I should pot have had this three-daj hunt. There is no sport in the killing of an animal ; the sport lies in the method by which it is hunted and killed ; and as I look back now on the many excitements of the chase. I can say with all honesty that I would not have exchanged it for the tiger itself.

General Bigot’s expeditions involved much mountaineering in the Himalayas, Titian Chan, and other ranges. He says the difficulties of the passes have been greatly exaggerated. “ The only danger is from avalanche, and this danger can practically- be eliminated by crossing the path .at night or in the very earlymorning before the sun has got sufficient heat to melt the snow.” In the Bamirs the yak is used for transport, and is wonderfully adapted to mountain' work.

No ground was too steep for them, and resembling a tank as they do it seems equally impossible for them to fall. Their thick, stumpy legs and large cloven feet give them enormous power, and it is rare to see one even slip. Occasionally in soft snow they will s’nk in nearly out of sight, but like the tank they quickly plough their way out. But to see them on a hard, frozen slope as steep even as 45 degrees is to see them at their best. Bracing all four legs as firm as iron they slide down without apparently any e. ort to balance themselves. Their great weight no doubt, so close to the ground, does away with the necessity for balance, and again in . this respect they remind one g itly of a tank.

General Bigot formed a very high estimate of the intelligence of elephants, through observing those used in his hunting expeditions in India and Burma. It was impossible not to feel convinced that they understood the very words of their mahout. As a retriever of. small game an elephant is hard to beat, and its sensitive trunk enables it to find its way over rough or boggy ground better than any other animal by night as well as by day. I could never bring myself to kill an elephant later on when shooting in Africa. Their apparently human intelligence seemed to me to make it a crime. In New Zealand, which he visited in 1927, General Bigot found that the deer were too tame to afford good sport, but this drawback was counterbalanced by the difficulty of the country. New Zealand is quite one of the roughest countries In the world to shoot in. in many ways I would even say the roughest. He speaks of the difficulties of the jungle-like bush, the creeks and rivers to cross, the incessant rains in the mountains. But these difficulties make deer stalking in New Zealand the wonderful sport it is. Lastly, there is the New Zealander himself. As a packer, as a bushman, as a mate in camp, and as a “ man ” he is second to none in the world.

What General Bigot says about deer shooting licenses and the general policy in respect to acclimatisation of deer in New Zealand is worth the attention both of those to whom sport is an object, and big game an important national asset, and those who are concerned for the farmer’s crops and pastures and for the native flora.

At the beginning of this last chapter, General Bigot comments on the remarkable fact that none of the animals found in New Zealand to-day is indigenous to the country—of course, using the term “ animals ” in its popular sense of a four-footed creature. So far he is correct, but there is an error in his information when he goes on to say that the goats which the Maoris brought with them some 000 years ago were the first animals to set foot in the country. It seems hard for anyone to write about New Zealaiqd without making some mistake about its natural history. But probably we New Zealanders might blunder similarly if writing about couiitries not familiar to us. The book has numerous illustrations of characteristic scenes and episodes of the expeditions. J.