The Natural History of Selborne

Snow-scenes very beautiful.   Venus makes a most beautiful appearance.

Thick ice.  Ice in warm chambers.  Boys slide.  Ground as hard as iron.  Snow on the ground.

Carried the apples, pears, & roots into the cellars.

Men sow peat-ashes on their Grasses. Winter-aconites make a gay show.

Young sheep suffer much by the weather, & look poorly.

Arbutus’s, Cypresses, Ilex’s seem to be dead: even Portugal-laurels are injured, & Cedars of Libanus, American, & Swedish Junipers, & firs, Scotch & Spruce untouched.

The scorched laurels cast their leaves, & are almost naked.

On this cold day about noon a bat was flying round Gracious street-pond, & dipping down & sipping the water, like swallows, as it flew: all the while the wind was very sharp, & the boys were standing on the ice.