ABSTRACT
The parish itself provided White with a family. Just as importantly for our own inquiries, the Selborne parish was still a locality in which the human ecology was continuous with the non-human. Selborne is, and was, situated 'half way between Alton and Petersfield', small country towns themselves lying some eight miles apart, and though each of these towns adjoined an important coach road in White's time, Selborne was served only by cartways and narrow lanes. A friend from the naturalist's college days, John Mulso, would ask to be met by a guide when he came to visit him, for fear of getting lost. But a carpenter, two grocers, a shoemaker and saddler, a butcher (in front of whose yard White planted some lime trees) and two
18 The Selborne Pioneer
blacksmiths all had shops in or near the village street. According to White, 'We abound with poor, many of whom are sober and industrious, and live comfortably in good stone or brick cottages, which are glazed, and have chambers above stairs: mud buildings we have none.'3
