Gilbert White's House & Garden and The Oates Collection

' ... It is of course White’s later work "The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne" for which he is best known. It began as correspondence between himself and other like-minded gentlemen of the time, The Hon. Daines Barrington and Thomas Pennant, where they discussed their observations and theories about local flora, fauna and wildlife. White believed in studying living birds and animals in their natural habitat which was an unusual approach at that time, as most naturalists preferred to carry out detailed examinations of dead specimens in the comfort of their studies. White was thus the first to distinguish the chiffchaff, willow warbler and wood warbler as three separate species, largely on the basis of their different songs, and the first to describe accurately the harvest mouse and the noctule bat.

'"The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne" was published in 1789, just four years before White’s death, by his brother Benjamin, who was a publisher. Since that time it has never been out of print, is reported to be one of the most published books in the English language as well as being translated into several other languages. White now has the reputation of being "the first ecologist".'