The Natural History of Selborne

Bror Benjn cuts his grass, clover & rye, a decent burden, but much infested with wild chamomile, vulg: margweed: mayweed.

Straw-berries cryed about.

Rye in ear.  Green pease at supper, a large dish.  Young Cygnets on the Mole reiver at Cobham.  Hay made, & carrying at Wandsworth.  Roses, & sweet-briars beginning to blow in my brother’s outlet.

Field-crickets shrill on the verge of the forest.  Cockoos abound there. Thinned the apricots, & took off many hundreds.

The bloom of the hawthorns is vast: every bush appears as if covered in snow.  Brother Thomas left us, & went to Fyfield.

Aphides begin to appear on the hops: in some places they are called smother-flies.  Farmer Spencer’s Foredown hops are much injured, & are eaten by the chrysomelea: while Mr Hale’s adjoining are not much touched.

Sowed some white cucumber-seeds from S. Lambeth under an hand-glass.  Moon-shine.

Ophrys nidus-avis, and ophrys apifera blossom.

Wheat-ears begin to burst-out.  Boys bring hornets.  The planet Venus is just become an evening star:  but being now in the descending signs;  that is, the end of Virgo, where it now is, being a lower part of the Zodiac than the end of Leo, where the sun is;  Venus does not continue up an hour after the sun, & therefore must be always in a strong twilight.  It sets at present N. of the west;  but will be in the S.W. but not set an hour after the sun ’til Octr. from which time it will make a good figure ’til March in the S.W., W., & a little to the N. of the W.

Monks rhubarb seven feet high;  makes a noble appearance in bloom.