The Natural History of Selborne

Small flights of snow.

Oedicnemus appears & whistles.

Frogs croak: spawn abounds.

Regulus non cristatus minimus.  This bird appears the first of any of the summer-birds of passage, the jynx, or wryneck sometimes excepted.  It has only two harsh shrill notes.  Fine season for the husbandman.

Goose sits; while the gander with vast assiduity keeps guard; & takes the fiercest sow by the ear & leads her away crying.

Young cucumber swells.  The great bed heats well.

Planted out the cucumbers in the two-light frames: the plants are stout, but pretty long.  Several fruit have bloom in the first bed.

Made cucumber-bed over again; & added many barrows of fresh dung: it was so drenched with snow & rain that it would not heat.  Great hail-storm.

Golden-crested wren, regulus cristatus, sings.  His voice is as minute as his body.

Made the bearing cucumber-bed for four lights with seven loads of dung.  The bed was much wetted in making by the snow.