The Natural History of Selborne

Spitting rain, with wind all day.  Wheat begins to grow.  Several nectarines rot on the trees.  Peaches rot: plums burst & fall off.

Pulled the first Wrench’s radishes: they are mild & well-flavoured: are long & tap-rooted: bright red above ground, & milk-white under.

Gathered the first plate of peaches: ripe but not high-flavoured.  First bleached endive.

Missel-thrushes congregate & are very wild.  Thistle-down floats.  Thompson, who makes this appearance a circumstance attendant on his summer evening,

“Wide o’er the thistly lawn, as swells the breeze,/A whitening shower of vegetable down/Amusive floats…”

seems to have misapplyed it as to the season: since thistles which do not blow ’til the summer-solstice, cannot shed their down ’til autumn.

Sun, sweet day, full moon.

Vast dew, sweet day.  Aster chinensis.

Two swifts were seen again on this day at Fyfield: none afterwards.  Two last swifts seen at Blackburn in Lancashire.

Wheat harvest general.  Large sea-gulls.

Showers & sun.  Meonstoke a sweet district.

Fly-catchers bring out young broods.  Mich. daisy blows.  Apricots ripen.  Some martins, dispossessed of their nests by sparrows, return to them again when their enemies are shot, & breed in them.  Several pairs of martins have not yet brought forth their first brood.  They meet with interruptions, & leave their nests.