White is best known for his The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne (1789). This was a compilation of his letters to Thomas Pennant, the leading British zoologist of the day, and the Hon. Daines Barrington, an English barrister and another Fellow of the Royal Society. 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 Common Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler and Wood Warbler by means of their song.
White is regarded by many as England's first ecologist and one of the founders of modern respect for nature. He said of the earthworm:
Earthworms, though in appearance a small and despicable link in the chain of nature, yet, if lost, would make a lamentable chasm. worms seem to be the great promoters of vegetation, which would proceed but lamely without them...
White and William Markwick collected records of the dates of emergence of more than 400 plant and animal species, White recording in Hampshire and Markwick in Sussex between 1768 and 1793. These data, summarised in The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne as the earliest and latest dates for each event over the 25-year period, are among the earliest examples of modern phenology. His 1783–84 diary corroborates the dramatic climatic impacts of the volcanic 'Laki haze' that spread from Iceland with lethal consequences across Europe.
White's frequent accounts of a tortoise inherited from his aunt in The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne form the basis for Verlyn Klinkenborg's book, Timothy; or, Notes of an Abject Reptile (2006), as well as for Sylvia Townsend Warner's The Portrait of a Tortoise (1946).
Gilbert White's famous work has been continuously in print since its first publication and is one of the most frequently published books in the English language; it is available online from the Gutenberg Project. The paperback edition of The Illustrated Natural History of Selborne was last reprinted by Thames & Hudson in 2007. It was long held to be the fourth-most published book in the English language after the Bible, the works of Shakespeare, and John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress.
Gilbert White's sister Anne was married to Thomas Barker (1722-1809), called 'The father of meteorology', and Gilbert maintained a correspondence with his nephew Samuel Barker, who also kept a naturalist's journal.
- White, Gilbert 1795. A Naturalist's Calendar, with observations in various branches of natural history, extracted from the papers of the late Rev. Gilbert White of Selborne, Hampshire, Senior Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. Never before published. London: printed for B. and J. White, Horace's Head, Fleet Street. This posthumous collection of previously unpublished material was put together by J. Aikin.
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