Humans love to hunt – and now we do it online

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.’ While he might be first rate on the matter of birds and worms, on this evidence with regards humans, White surely mistook his own era for the whole of human history. Haven’t we changed since then? And aren’t the campaigners right? Humans don’t have an innate desire to hunt.