But here let us leave the Portsmouth Road awhile for an expedition of some five miles into the still wild and rarely-travelled tract of country in whose midst lies the village of Selborne, memorable as the home, during his long life, of that most amiable and placid student of Nature and her works, the Rev. Gilbert White, D.D. When you have passed through the village of Liss, you come at once into a broad expanse of country whose characteristics resemble the typical scenes of Devonshire rather than those of Hants. Swelling hills and fertile vales, still intersected by the deeply-rutted lanes of which Gilbert White speaks, lead on to the sequestered village of Selborne, as remote now from the rumours and alarums of the outer world as when the naturalist penned his "Natural History of Selborne," over a hundred years ago. [Illustration: THE WAKES, _SELBORNE_] The village occupies, with its few cottages, its church and vicarage, and Gilbert White's home, "The Wakes," a long and narrow valley. The Hanger, covered now as in White's time with his favourite tree, the beech, rises at the back of the village street, and trees indeed abound everywhere, coming even to aid the simple architecture of the place. The butcher's shop at Selborne rests its front on three polled limes which form living pillars to the roof, and give, apart from their rustic appearance, a welcome shade and grateful coolness to that country shop in the heats of summer. But the most remarkable tree in Selborne, as indeed anywhere in Hampshire, is the noble churchyard yew, mentioned by the naturalist, and still standing to the south-west of the church. This remarkable tree has a circumference of twenty-five feet two inches at a height of four and a half feet from the ground; it rises to a total height of sixty-two feet, and its great branches spread a distance of twenty-two yards from north to south. It is still in the perfection of good health, and its foliage wears the dark and lustrous appearance characteristic of the yew when in a thriving state. It must have been a remarkable tree even in Gilbert White's time, and its age can only be counted by centuries. [Sidenote: _GILBERT WHITE_] The Wakes, where this simple soul lived so long, stands in the village street, by the open grass-plot, familiar to readers of the "Natural History" as the Plestor. Additions have been made to the house since White's time, but so judiciously that its appearance is little altered. His summer-house is gone to wreck, but the sunny garden, with its narrow red-brick path, remains, and so does the American juniper tree, together with the sculptured sun-dial, both set up by this quiet curate-in-charge.