The Natural History of Selborne

Bat out.  This is the twelfth dry day.

The Nightingale was heard this harsh evening near James Knight’s ponds.  This bird of passage,  I observe, comes as early in cold cutting springs, as mild ones!

Hoed & cleaned the alleys.

Dug the asparagus bed, & cleared away the straw laid on.  Farmers wish for a gentle rain.

Thomas Knight, a sober hind, assures us, that this day on Wish-hanger Common between Hedleigh & Frinsham he was several Bank Martins playing in & out, & hanging before some nest-holes in a sand-hill, where these birds usually nestle.  This incident confirms my suspicions, that this species of Hirundo is to be seen first of any; & gives great reason to suppose that they do not leave their wild haunts at all, but are secreted amidst the clefts, & caverns of these abrupt cliffs where they usually spend their summers.  The late severe weather considered, it is not very probable that these birds should have migrated so early from a tropical region thro’ all these cutting winds and pinching frosts: but it is easy to suppose that they may like bats & flies, have been awakened by the influence of the Sun, amidst their secret latebrae, where they have spent the uncomfortable foodless months in a torpid state, & the profoundest of slumbers.  There is a large pond at Wish-hanger which induces these sand-martins to frequent that district.  For I have ever remarked that they haunt near great waters, either rivers or lakes.  Planted in one of the quarters of the garden, in ground well-dunged, 8 long rows of potatoes.  Carted in hot dung for the cucumber-bed.

The chaffinches destroy the blossoms of the polyanths in a sad manner.  Sowed a bed of carrots: the ground hard, & rough, & does not rake fine.

On the 6th of last October I saw many swallows hawking for flies around the Plestor, & a row of young ones, with square tails, sitting on a spar of the old ragged thatch of the empty house.  This morning Dr Chandler & I cause the roof to be examined, hoping to have found some of these birds in their winter retreat: but we did not meet with any success, tho’ Benham searched every hole & every breach in the decayed roof.

The air smells very sweet, & salubrious.  Men dig their hop-gardens, & sow spring-corn.  Cucumber plants show rudiments of fruit.  Planted cuttings of currans, & goose-berries.  Dug some of the quarters in the garden, & sowed onions, parsnips, radishes, & lettuces.  Planted more beans in the meadow.  Many flies are out basking in the sun.

Timothy Turner ashed a great part of Baker’s hill, & dunged one part.  Wag-tail on grass-plots.

The small willow-wren, or chif-chaf, is heard inthe short Lythe.  This is the earliest summer bird, & is heard usually about the 20th of March.  Tho’ one of the smallest of our birds, yet it’s two notes are very loud, & piercing, so as to occasion an echo in the hanging woods.  It loves to frequent tall beeches.