Humans love to hunt – and now we do it online
From our UK edition
When not in church, Gilbert White spent his time outdoors, marvelling at the world. The Natural History of Selborne, published in 1789 at the end of his life, hasn’t been out of print since. It records White’s gentle, perceptive insights into nature – he realised the importance of the earthworm to soil before Darwin, for one – and describes an England unspoiled by the Industrial Revolution. It’s a foundational text of English naturalist writing and boasts a long list of admirers, including Richard Mabey and Robert MacFarlane. But reading it recently, one passage struck me as incorrect: ‘most men are sportsmen by constitution: and there is such an inherent spirit for hunting in human nature, as scarce any inhibitions can restrain.
