The Natural History of Selborne

Gardens much injured by the heat.  White throat appears, & whistles, using odd gesticulations in the air when it mounts above the hedges.

Sun, sultry, fierce heat!  Midsummer evening.  The sun scorched øtil within an hour of setting.  Swfit appears at Manchester & Fyfield.  Apus, one single swift.  They usually arrive in pairs.  Parhelia, or odd halo round the sun.  Described since in Gent. mag.

Early tulips blow.  A pair of house-martins appear, & frequent the nest at the end of the house; a single one also wants to go in.  THese must be of the family bred there last year.  The nest was built last summer. The martins throw the rubbish out of their nest.  Bank-martins abound on short-heath: they come full as soon as the house-swallow.  Two swans inhabit Oakhanger-ponds: they came of themselves in the winter with three more.  Pulled won many old House-martin’s nests; they were full of rubbish, & the exuviae of the Hippobosca hirundinis in the pupa state.  These insects obtain so much sometimes in yir nests, as to render the place insupportable to the young, & to oblige them to throw themselves to the ground.  The case is the same sometimes with young swifts.

Ivy-berries fall off dead-ripe.

Swallows abound; but no house-martin, or black-cap.  No swift.

Several beeches in the hanger begin to leaf.  Black snails abound.  Womrs, when sick, seem to come out of the Ground to die: under the same circumstances some amphibiae quit the water.  * Thomas kept a journal of incidents during my absence.

Luscinia.  Cuculus.  Inyx.

Mrs Snooke’s tortoise came out of the ground the second time, for the summer.

The barley-season goes on briskly.  Hops are poling.  Curlews clamour.  *The Saxon word hlithe, whith the h aspirate before it, signifies clivus: hence no doubt two abrupt steep pasture-fields near this village are called the short, & long lithe.  Much such another steep pasture at about a mile distance is also called the lithe.  Steethe in Saxon sigifies ripa, a perpendicular bank: hence steethe swalwe, riparia hirundo.

Two swallows.  Black snail.  Some few apricots, which escaped the frost, seem to be set.  Some peach & nect. bloom not destoryed.  The trees were struck full of ivy-boughs, which seem to have been of service against the severe cold.