The Natural History of Selborne

House-martins do not build as usual:  perhaps are troubled to find wet dirt.  Bees swarm.  Severe heat in the lanes in the middle of the day.

Grass on the common burnt very brown.  Tulips decay.  No dews for mowing in common.

No thoro’ rain in this district since the 9, 10, & 11 of March.  The small ponds in the vales are now all dryed up, while the small ponds on the very tops of hills are but little affected.  can this difference be accounted-for from evaporation alone, which certainly is most prevalent in bottoms: or rather have not these elevated pools some unnoticed recruits by condensation, or some other secret means in the night time, so as to draw supplies to themselves from dews & mists, especially where trees over-hang?  Without a constant supply the cattle alone must soon drink them.  It must be allowed that in these parts the upland ponds have the most clayey, & holding bottoms: yet this advantage alone can never occasion the difference, the circumstance of cattle being considered.

We are obliged to water the garden continually.  Some wells dry.

Thrushes now, during this long drought, for want of worms hunt-out shell-snails, & pick them to pieces for their young.  My horses begin to lie abroad.

Dutch-honeysuckles in high bloom.

Mr Yalden’s tank is dry.

No chafers appear as yet: in those seasons that they abound they deface the foliage of the whole country, especially on the downs, where woods & hedges are scarce. Regulus non cristatus stridet voce locustulae: this bird, the latest & largest willow-wren, haunts the tops of the tallest woods, making a stammering noise at intervals, & shivering with it’s wings.  Bank-martins abound over the ponds in the forest: swifts seldom appear in cold, black days round the church.

Ponds fail.  Watered away hogsheads on the garden, which is burnt to powder.

Two pairs of nightingales in my fields.  The country strangely dryed-up.  Fine showers about last friday.