ABSTRACT
The behaviour contributing to the perpetuation of an animal species, or which could be brought under the heading 'love', included sexual behaviour, of course. White did not dwell on sexuality, but he referred to it without prurience and without embarrassment ( o the displeasure of some of his Victorian editors). He described the coupling of swifts in the air, and if he was puzzled as to 'how the female toad was impregnated', he was one of the first, if not the first, to recognize the hermaphroditism of earthworms.1 He willingly accepted the importance of sexuality in the lives of plants, although this appears more from the journals than from Selborne. The botanist too, if he was to make sense of his subject, had to allow for love - or the indispensable contributions of both males and females.
