The Natural History of Selborne

Men put-up their hogs to fat.  House-flies muscae domesticae, now croud about the fire-place, run on hearths, & sport in the chimney-corner.

My well has now only three feet in water: it has never been so low, since my father sunk it, more than forty years ago.

Dug up potatoes, & carrots.

Gathered-in Cadilliac-pears, dearlings, & royal russets.

Dug up potatoes: earthed up celeri.  Gathered knobbed russetings, a large crop.  Our building-sand from Wolmer-forest seems pure from dirt: but examined thro’ a microscope proves not to be sharp, & angular, but smooth as from collision.  It is of a yellow colour.  “The amazing number of swallows that at this time are flying in London, is a very uncommon appearance.  They seem greatly affected by the severe cold weather we have experienced for some days past, since the wind has been northerly; they fly in at windows, & are so tamed or numbed, that boys beat them down, as they fly in the streets.”  The Gazetteer

Gathered swan’s egg pears, a large crop.  Surprising Auroras, very red in the W!!!  The young swarms of bees this summer are light; the old stocks are heavy.

The wind blows down apples and pears.  Vivid aurora.

Began to light fires in the parlor.  Aurora.

The well at Filmer-hill is 60 yards deep: at Privet, on the top of the hill, they have no wells, & have been greatly distressed for water the summer thro’.  The Warnford, & Meonstoke stream as full, & bright, as if there had been no drought.

Hooker’s-hill mended by Tom Prior: the ditch below which was made about fifty years ago, is now open’d and cleaned.