The Natural History of Selborne

Wheat generally in bloom.  The beards of barley begin to peep.

Flowers in the garden make a gaudy appearance.

No young partridges are flyers yet: but by the deportment of the dams it is plain they have chickens hatched; for they rise & fall before the horses feet, & hobble along as if wounded to draw-off attention from their helpless broods.  Sphinx forte ocellata.  A vast insect; appears after it is dusk, flying with an humming noise, & inserting it’s tongue into the bloom of the honey-suckle: it scarcely settles on the plants but feeds on the wing in the manner of humming-birds.  Omiah, who is gone on board the Resolution, is expected to sail this week for Otaheite with Capt. Cook.

Vine just begins to blow: it began last year June 7: in 1774 June 26.  Wheat begins to blow.  Thomas’s bees swarm, & settle on the Balm of Gilead fir.  first swarm.

Hay makes well.  The wind bangs the hedges & flowers about.

Cut my St foin; a large burden: rather over-blown: the nineth crop.  Libellula virgo, sive puella.  Dragon-fly with blue upright wings.

* As the way-menders are digging for stone in a bank of the street, they found a large cavern running just under the cart-way.  This cavity was covered over by a thin stratum of rock:  so that if the arch had given way under a loaded waggon, considerable damage must have ensued.

Snails begin to engender, & some flew to lay eggs:  hence it is matter of consequence to destroy them before midummer.

I saw two swifts, entangled with each other, fall out of their nest to the ground, from whence they soon rose & flew away.  This accident was probably owing to amorous dalliance.  Hence it appears that swifts when down can rise again.  Swifts seen only morning & evening: the hens probably are engaged all the day in the business of incubation;  while the cocks are roving after food down to the forest, & lakes.  These birds begin to sit about the middle of this month, & have squab young before the month is out.

Martins begin building at half hour after three in the morning.

Drones abound round the mouth of the hive that is expected to swarm.  Sheep are shorn.