The View from Gilbert White's Window

by IAN BLYTH

He never married,
though in later life
he grew attached
to a tortoise left in his care.

Tortoises can take
an entire month, he reads,
to perform one single act of
copulation.

He's a mine of helpful information:
goats, despite appearances,
don't breathe through their ears,
nor are toads a cure for cancer;

the jury's still undecided
on whether swallows hibernate,
or bats fly down chimneys
to gnaw a slab of bacon,

but a bullfinch fed on hemp-seed
will invariably turn black.