Gilbert White Quotations

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

Bats drink on the wing, like swallows, by sipping the surface, as they play over pools and streams.

I was much entertained last summer with a tame bat, which would take flies out of a person's hand.

General Howe turned out some German wild boars and sows in his forests, to the great terror of the neighbourhood; and, at one time, a wild bull or buffalo: but the country rose upon them and destroyed them.

It is, I find, in zoology as it is in botany: all nature is so full, that that district produces the greatest variety which is the most examined.

We have had a very severe frost and deep snow this month. My thermometer was one day fourteen degrees and a half below the freezing point, within doors.

The parish of Selborne, by taking in so much of the forest, is a vast district.

Though large herds of deer do much harm to the neighbourhood, yet the injury to the morals of the people is of more moment than the loss of their crops.

I want to be better informed with regard to ichthyology.

The French, I think, in general, are strangely prolix in their natural history.

You may depend on it that the bunting, emberiza miliaria, does not leave this country in the winter.

Numbers of snipes breed every summer in some moory ground on the verge of this parish.

I make no doubt but there are three species of the willow-wrens: two I know perfectly; but have not been able yet to procure the third.

Freshwater supplies in the Middle East now are barely sufficient to maintain a quality standard of living.

As the population in this region continues to grow and economic development increases, these countries must work together to ensure that ecosystems are preserved and adequate water supplies sustained.

Providence has been so indulgent to us as to allow of but one venomous reptile of the serpent kind in these kingdoms, and that is the viper.

The most insignificant insects and reptiles are of much more consequence, and have much more influence in the economy of nature, than the incurious are aware of; and are mighty in their effect, from their minuteness, which renders them less an object of attention; and from their numbers and fecundity.

The message of the study is water for the future. What we are suggesting is water protection for our children and grandchildren.

The mention of hews put me in mind that there is a total failure of that wild fruit, so conducive to the support of many of the winged nation.