The Natural History of Selborne

Nothing left abroad but seed-clover, & a few beans.

Fine young clover & fine turneps about the country.  * The quantities of haws, & sloes this year are prodigious.  Those hives of bees that have been taken have proved deficient in wax, & honey.  In shady wet summers bees can scarce procure a store sufficient to carry them thro’ the winter: if not fed they perish.

Wasps still go into the hives.  Gathered-in some of the early pippins: fine baking apples.

Peaches, & nect. rot.  Wasps are busy still.  *Large earth-worms now abound on my grass-plot, where the ground was sunk more than a foot.  At first when the earth was removed, none seemed to remain: but whether they were bred from eggs that were concealed in the turf, is hard to say.  Worms do not seem to inhabit beneath the vegetable mould.

Wagtails join with hirundines, & pursue an hawk high in the air: the former shew great command of wing on the occasion.

Swallows catch at walls as they flie about.

Swallows cluster, & hang about in a particular manner at this season of the year.  Honey-bees swarm by thousands, & devour the peaches, & nectarines.

My muscle-plums are in much more perfection this year than any other fruit.

The wasps, tho’ by no means numberous, plunder the hives, & kill the bees, which are weak & feeble, this wet autumn:  “asper crabro imparibus se emiscuit armis.”

A sharp, single, crack of thunder at Faringdon: the air was cold, & chilly.