The Natural History of Selborne

• 1792: July 31, 1792 – The young Hirundines begin to congregate on the tower.  How punctual are these birds in all their proceedings!
• 1791: July 31, 1791 – “On the last day of this month my Fathr Mr Ben Wh. shot in his own garden at S. Lambeth, a Loxia curvisrostra, or Cross bill, as it was feeding on the cones of his Scotch firs.  There were six, four cocks, & two hens: what he shot was a cock, which was beautifull variegated with brown, & green, & a great deal of red: it answered very accurately to Willughby’s description; & weighed rather more than 1 ounce & an half.  In the evening the five remaining birds were seen to fly over the garden, making a chearful note.”  Thus far Mrs Ben White.  To which we add that flights of Cross bills used to frequent Mrs Snooke’s scotch firs in the month of July only.  Mr Ray says, “per autumnum interdum sed rarius in Angliam venit, non autem apud nos perennat aut ndificat.”  Synopsis.
• 1789: July 31, 1789 – Louring, vast rain, blowing.  This rain was very great at Malpas, in Chesire.
• 1787: July 31, 1787 – Vast rain, an inch & a quarter in 8 hours.
• 1785: July 31, 1785 – Hops begin to form on their poles: but the gardens in general, fall off, & look lousey, since the rains.
• 1783: July 31, 1783 – The after-grass in the great meadow burns.  The sheep-down burns & is rusty. Much water in the pond on the hill!  This morning Will Tanner shot, off the tall meris-trees in the great mead, 17 young black-birds.  The cherries of these trees amuse the birds & save the garden-fruit.
• 1780: July 31, 1780 – Dined at Bramshot.  Turnips flourish on the sands.  Mr Richardon’s garden at Bramshot-place abounds with fruit.
• 1775: July 31, 1775 – Horses at plow so teized by flies as to be quite frantic.  Horses are never tormenteed in that manner ’til after midsumr: the people say it is the nose-fly that distracts them so.  I can discover only such flies as haunt the heads of horses: perhaps at this season they lay their eggs in the nose & ears.  I never can discern any oestrus on those days, only swarms of small muscae.
• 1773: July 31, 1773 – The lightening beat down a chimney on the Barnet: no person was hurt.  Measles still about.
  * Thro’ this month the Caprimulgi are busy every evening in catching the solstitial chafers which abound on chalky soils on the tops of hills.  These birds certainly do, as I suspected last year, take these insects with their feet, & pick them to pieces as they flie along, & so pouch them for their young.  Any person that has a quick eye may see them bend their heads downwards, & push out their short feet forwards as they pull their prey to pieces.  The chafer may also be discerned in their claws.  The serrated claw threfore on their longest toe is no doubt for the purpose of holding their prey.  This is the only insectivorous bird that I know which takes it’s prety flying with it’s feet.
• 1772: July 31, 1772 – The ground dryed to powder.
• 1771: July 31, 1771 – Considerable rain in the night.  Clap of thunder.  Showers about.

• 2008: July 19 – <?php OTDList(); ?>
• 1792: July 30, 1792 – Mr Churton left us, & went to Waverley.
• 1791: July 30, 1791 – Made black curran-jelly.  Finished cutting the tall hedges.  Gathered some lavender.
• 1789: July 30, 1789 – John Hale brings home a waggon-load of woollen-rags, which are to be strewed on this hop-grounds in the spring, & dug in as manure.  These rags weighed at ton weight & cost brought home near six pounds.  They came from Gosport.
• 1788: July 30, 1788 – Some workmen, reapers, are made sick by the heat.  Much wheat bound. Some housed by John Carpenter.
• 1787: July 30, 1787 – Wheat-harvest will be backward.  Mr White’s tank at Newton runds over; but Captain Dumaresque’s, which is much larger, is not full.
• 1786: July 30, 1786 – Some hop-gardens injured by the wind of yesterday. Arichokes so dried-up that they do not head well.
• 1785: July 30, 1785 – Boys bring the 8th & 9th wasps nest.  Pyramidal campanula blows.
• 1783: July 30, 1783 – Few hazel-nuts.  Men house field-pease.  Ponds are dry.  Grass-walks burn.  Ripening weather.
• 1781: July 30, 1781 – The ants, male, female, & workers, come forth from under my stairs by thousands.
• 1780: July 30, 1780 – Young snipes were seen at the Bishop of Winchester’s table at Farnham-castle on this day: they are bred on all the moory-heaths of this neighbourhood.
• 1777: July 30, 1777 – Pond-heads are blown-up: & roads torn by the torrents.  Great flood at Gracious street.  Several mills are damaged.  Hay drowned.  Finished the walls of my new parlor.
• 1776: July 30, 1776 – Peacocks begin to moult & cast their splendid train. Total eclipse of the moon.
• 1775: July 30, 1775 – By this evenings post I am informed, by a Gent. who is just come from thence that the hops all round Canterbury have failed:  there are many hundred acres not worth picking.
• 1772: July 30, 1772 – Vast aurora borealis.
• 1771: July 30, 1771 – Sun chilly.  Cold white dew.  Rain.
• 1770: July 30, 1770 – Cut my little mead.  Vines in bloom.  Showers about.

Apologies for the missed post yesterday; having a hectic time at the moment.

• 2008: July 30 – <?php OTDList(); ?>
  Apologies for the missed post yesterday; having a hectic time at the moment.
• 1792: July 30, 1792 – Mr Churton left us, & went to Waverley.
• 1791: July 30, 1791 – Made black curran-jelly.  Finished cutting the tall hedges.  Gathered some lavender.
• 1789: July 30, 1789 – John Hale brings home a waggon-load of woollen-rags, which are to be strewed on this hop-grounds in the spring, & dug in as manure.  These rags weighed at ton weight & cost brought home near six pounds.  They came from Gosport.
• 1788: July 30, 1788 – Some workmen, reapers, are made sick by the heat.  Much wheat bound. Some housed by John Carpenter.
• 1787: July 30, 1787 – Wheat-harvest will be backward.  Mr White’s tank at Newton runds over; but Captain Dumaresque’s, which is much larger, is not full.
• 1786: July 30, 1786 – Some hop-gardens injured by the wind of yesterday. Arichokes so dried-up that they do not head well.
• 1785: July 30, 1785 – Boys bring the 8th & 9th wasps nest.  Pyramidal campanula blows.
• 1783: July 30, 1783 – Few hazel-nuts.  Men house field-pease.  Ponds are dry.  Grass-walks burn.  Ripening weather.
• 1781: July 30, 1781 – The ants, male, female, & workers, come forth from under my stairs by thousands.
• 1780: July 30, 1780 – Young snipes were seen at the Bishop of Winchester’s table at Farnham-castle on this day: they are bred on all the moory-heaths of this neighbourhood.
• 1777: July 30, 1777 – Pond-heads are blown-up: & roads torn by the torrents.  Great flood at Gracious street.  Several mills are damaged.  Hay drowned.  Finished the walls of my new parlor.
• 1776: July 30, 1776 – Peacocks begin to moult & cast their splendid train. Total eclipse of the moon.
• 1775: July 30, 1775 – By this evenings post I am informed, by a Gent. who is just come from thence that the hops all round Canterbury have failed:  there are many hundred acres not worth picking.
• 1772: July 30, 1772 – Vast aurora borealis.
• 1771: July 30, 1771 – Sun chilly.  Cold white dew.  Rain.
• 1770: July 30, 1770 – Cut my little mead.  Vines in bloom.  Showers about.

• 1790: July 28, 1790 – Children gather strawberries every morning from the hanger where the tall beeches were felled in winter 1788.
• 1789: July 28, 1789 – Lapwings leave the bogs, & moors in large flocks, & frequent the uplands.
• 1788: July 28, 1788 – Two swifts sipping the surface of Bin’s pond.  The bed of Oakhanger pond covered with large muscle shells.  The stint, or summer snipe.  Large flock of lapwings in the Forest.
• 1783: July 28, 1783 – Wasps swarm so that we were obliged to gather-in all the cherries under the net.
• 1781: July 28, 1781 – Gleaners bring home bundles of corn.  The black-birds, & thrushes come from the woods in troops to plunder my garden.  We shot 30 blackbirds, & thrushes.  The white-throats are bold thieves; nor are the red-breasts at all honest with respect to currans.  Birds are guided by colour, & do not touch any white fruits ’til they have cleared all the red; they eat the red grapes, rasps, currans, & goose-berries first.
• 1780: July 28, 1780 – Vast crops of cow-grass. Much hay made. Vast lights in the air from all quarters.  Crickets swarm in my kitchen-chimney.
  *  The flies, called by our people Nose flies, torment the horses at plow.  They lay their eggs in the ears as well as the noses of cattle.  Some of our farmer’s work their teams with little baskets tyed-on over the horses noses.  These flies seem to prevail only in Italy.  Round the eaves of the Priory farmhouse are 40 martins-nests, which have sent forth their first brood in swarms, At 4 young to a nest only, the first brood will produce 160; & the second the same, which together make 320: add to these the 40 pairs of old ones, which make in all 400; a vast flight for one house!! The first, when congregating on the tiles, covers one side of the roof!
• 1778: July 28, 1778 – Wallnuts & hazel-nuts abound. One bank-martin at Combwood-pond: the only one I ever saw so far from the forest.
• 1777: July 28, 1777 – Lime trees in full bloom: on these the bees gather much honey.
• 1775: July 28, 1775 – Ten nests of wasps have been destroy’d just at hand: they abound & are ploughed up every day.
• 1772: July 28, 1772 – Veratrum rubrum.  Brother John arrived at Gravesend in 37 days from Cadiz.  He went from Gibraltar to Cadiz by land to get a ship.  Ponds fail.  Wheat turns.  Hardly any rain at Selb.
• 1769: July 28, 1769 – The showers do not at all moisten the ground, which remains as hard as iron.  No savoys, endives, &c. can be planted-out.
• 1768: July 28, 1768 – Gathered frenchbeans.

• 1790: July 27, 1790 – Honey-dews, which make the planters in pain for their hops.  Hops are infested with aphides; look badly.
• 1789: July 27, 1789 – Farmer Spence & Farmer Knight are beginning to lime their respective farms at Grange & Norton.
• 1788: July 27, 1788 – We have had a few chilly mornings & evenings, which have sent off the swifts.  I have remarked before, many times, how early they are in their retreat. Surely they must be influenced by the failure of some particular insect, which ceases to fly thus early, being checked by the first cool autumnal sensations; since their congeners will not depart yet thses eight or nine weeks.
• 1787: July 27, 1787 – Rooks in vast flocks return to the deep woods at half past 8 o’clock in the evening.
• 1786: July 27, 1786 – Saw a nightingale.  Stifling dust.
• 1783: July 27, 1783 – My china-holly-hocks, after standing a year or two, lose all their fine variegated appearance, & turn to good common sorts, being double, & deeply coloured.
• 1782: July 27, 1782 – Vast rain.  Swllows-nests with their young washed down the chimney.
• 1780: July 27, 1780 – Tortoise eats gooseberries.
• 1779: July 27, 1779 – Planted out in trenches four rows of celeri.
• 1778: July 27, 1778 – Few turnips are yet sown: they were prevented first by the dry weather, & then by the rain.
• 1774: July 27, 1774 – Turned out the worst of my St foin for thatch for my rick.
• 1773: July 27, 1773 – Some wheat seems to be blighted.
• 1772: July 27, 1772 – Small shower at Selbrone.  Young swallows abound.
• 1771: July 27, 1771 – Cucumbers begin to bear again.
• 1769: July 27, 1769 – Some grapes are got pretty large.  Finished cutting the small hedges.

• 1792: July 26, 1792 – This cool, shady summer is not good for mens fallows, which are heavy, & weedy. Lettuces have not loaved, or bleached well this summer.
• 1791: July 26, 1791 – Mrs Henry White, & Lucy came from Fyfield.
• 1789: July 26, 1789 – By observing two glow-worms, which were brought from the field to the bank in the garden, it appeared to us, that those little creatures put-out their lamps between eleven & twelve, & shine no more for the rest of the night.
• 1788: July 26, 1788 – The fields are now finely diversfyed with ripe corn, hay & harvest scenes, & hops. The whole country round is a charming land-scape,& puts me in mind of the following lovely lines in the first book of the Cyder of John Phillips.
  “Nor are the hills unamiable, whose tops/
  To heaven aspire, affording prospect sweet/
  To human ken; nor at their feet the vales/
  Descending gently, where the lowing herd/
  Chews verdurous pasture; nor the yellow fields/
  Gaily interchang’d, with rich variety/
  Pleasing; as when an Emerald green enchas’d/
  In flamy gold, from the bright mass acquires/
  A nobler hue, more delicate to sight.”
• 1787: July 26, 1787 – The farmers talk much that wheat is blighted. Kidney-beans do not thrive.
• 1785: July 26, 1785 – By frequent picking we have much reduced the Cocci on the vines.  Vast storm of thunder, & rain at Thursley, which damaged the crops.  Thursley is in Surrey, to the N.E. of us.
• 1783: July 26, 1783 – Some wheat reaped at Faringdon.  Boys bring two more wasps nests.
• 1781: July 26, 1781 – The blackbirds & thrushes, that have devoured all the wild cherries in the meadow, now begin to plunder the garden.
• 1780: July 26, 1780 – Vast fog at sea, over the Sussex-downs.
• 1776: July 26, 1776 – Cut the grass in the little meadow.  Hay makes well.  Hops fill their poles, & throw-out lateral shoots.
• 1774: July 26, 1774 – Finished my meadow-hay in good order: St foin spoiled.
• 1772: July 26, 1772 – Fine shower in the night.  Distant thunder.  Frogs migrate in myriads from the ponds.
• 1771: July 26, 1771 – Turneps fail in many places, & are sown over again.
• 1770: July 26, 1770 – Turneps begin to be hoed.  Red-breast’s note begins to be distinguishable, other birds being more silent.
• 1768: July 26, 1768 – Threat’ning clouds at a distance, but most delicate ripening weather.

• 1790: July 25, 1790 – Lime trees are fragrant: the golden tassels are beautiful. Dr Chandler tells us that in the south of France, an infusion of the blossoms of the lime-tree, tilia, is in much esteem as a remedy for coughs, hoarseness, fevers, &c., & that at Nismes he saw an avenue of limes that was quite ravaged & torn to pieces by people greedily gathering the bloom, which they dryed & kept for their purposes. Upon the strength of this information we made some tea of lime-blossoms, & found it a very soft, well-flavoured, pleasant, saccharine julep, in taste much resembling the juice of liquorice.
• 1789: July 25, 1789 – No garden-beans gathered yet.  Threw the hay in the meadows into large cocks.  The lime-trees with their golden tassels make a most beautiful show.  Hops throw out their side branches, which are to bear the fruit.  Cran-berries at bin pond not ripe.  Hog pease are hacking at Oakhanger.
• 1786: July 25, 1786 – Pease are hacked: rye is reaping: turnips thrive & are hoing.
• 1785: July 25, 1785 – Boys bring the sixth & seventh wasp’s nest.  My Nep. Edmd White sends me some fine wall-nuts for pickling.  The trees at Newton were not at all touched by the severity of last winter; while mine were so damaged that all the bearing twigs were destroyed.  My wall-nut trees have this summer pushed out shoots thro’ the old bark, several feet from the extremities of the boughs.  While the hen-fly-catcher sits, the cock feeds her all day long: he also pays attention to the former brood, which he feeds at times.
• 1783: July 25, 1783 – Trenched two more rows of celeri in the upper end of the plot by W. Dewey’s: the ground mellow.  We plant out the cabbage-kind some few at a time.  The boys bring me a large wasp’s nest full of maggots.
• 1781: July 25, 1781 – The crop on my largest Apricot-tree is still prodigious, tho’ in May I pulled off 30, or 40 dozen.
• 1779: July 25, 1779 – Puff-balls come up in my grass-plot, & walks: they came from the common in the turf.  There are many fairy-rings in my walks, in these the puff-balls thrive best.  The fairy-rings alter & vary in their shape.
• 1778: July 25, 1778 – The water shines in the fallows.  Much damage done about London by lightening on July 20.
• 1776: July 25, 1776 – Bees that have not swarmed kill their drones.
• 1774: July 25, 1774 – Grapes very small & backward for want of sun.  qu: if they will ripen.
  *They did in Octr.
• 1773: July 25, 1773 – Some hops much infested with aphides.
• 1772: July 25, 1772 – Wheat turns yellowish.  Mercury falls very fast.
• 1768: July 25, 1768 – Cut the first cantelupe-melon.

• 1792: July 24, 1792 – Preserved some cherries. My meadow-hay was carried, in decent order. As we were coming from Newton this evening, on this side of the Money-dells, a cock Fern-owl came round us, & showed himself in a very amusing manner, whistling, or piping as he flew. Whenever he settled on the turf, as was often the case, Mr Churton went, & sprung him, & brought him round again. He did not clash his wings over his back, so as to make them snap. At the top of the Bostal we found a bat hawking for moths. Fern-owls & bats are rivals in their food, commanding each great powers of wing, & contending who shall catch the phalaenae of the evening.
• 1791: July 24, 1791 – The foreign Arum in the vicarage court, called by my Grandmother Dragons, & by Linnaeus Arum Dracunculus, has lately blown.  It is an Italian plant, & yet has subsisted there thro’ all the severe frosts of 80 or 90 years; & has escaped all the diggings, & alterations that have befallen the borders of that garden.  It thrives best under a N. wall, but how it is propagated does not appear.  The spatha, & spadix are very long.
• 1790: July 24, 1790 – Trenched four rows of celeri, good streight plants.  Lime trees in full bloom. Large honey-dews on my great oak, that attract the bees, which swarm upon it.  Some wheat is much lodged by the wind & rain.  There is reason to fear from the coldness & wetness of the season that the crop will not be good.  Windy, wet, cold solstices are never favourable to wheat, because they interrupt the bloom, & shake it off before it has perfomred it’s function.
• 1786: July 24, 1786 – Mr Richardson’s garden abounds with all sorts of crops, & with many sorts of fruits.  His sandy soil produces an abundance of every thing; & does not burn in droughts like the clays, which are now bound-up so as to injure the growth of all garden matters.  The watered meadows at Bramshot flourish & ook green, the uplands grass is much scorched.  Mr R. has a pretty good show of Nectarines.
• 1784: July 24, 1784 – Planted bore-cole, &c.  Yellow horizon.  Bror Henry left us.
• 1782: July 24, 1782 – Whortle-berries ripen.  Bought an aged brown Galloway of Mr Bradley of Alton.
• 1780: July 24, 1780 – Tortoise eats endive & poppies.
• 1775: July 24, 1775 – Hops throw out good side shoots & blow.  Some few hills have perfect hops.  A sea-lark shot at Newton-pond
• 1774: July 24, 1774 – Young swallows & martins begin to congregate on roofs.  These are the first flight.
• 1773: July 24, 1773 – Wheat at Farnham £17-12-6 pr load.  Several fields of cone, or bearded wheat growing this year round the village: the bloom of this wheat is of a brimstone colour.  The bloom of some beardless wheat is purple: qu: what sort? The bloom of wheat in general is whitish.
• 1770: July 24, 1770 – Swallows begin to feed yir young ones flying.

• 1789: July 23, 1789 – Farmer Knight sold two loads of wheat for 36 ae!  Brisk gale.  Hay makes well.
• 1788: July 23, 1788 – An other wasps nest.  Wheat blited at Oakhanger.  Oakhanger-ponds empty: they were sewed in the spring.
• 1787: July 23, 1787 – Young red-breasts, a second brood.  Notwithstanding the showery season, the aphides encrease on the hops.
• 1785: July 23, 1785 – Some water in the pond on the down.  Mr. Edmd White’s tank has four feet of water.
• 1783: July 23, 1783 – Turnips (field) thrive, & are hoeing.
• 1782: July 23, 1782 – Will. Tanner shot a sparrow-hawk, which had infested the village for some time.  It had lately made havock among the young swallows, & h. martins which are slow & inactive: the dams insult all hawks with impunity.
• 1781: July 23, 1781 – Of those China hollyhocks that stood the winter the tall ones are plain & single: the stunted ones are double & variegated.
• 1779: July 23, 1779 – Golden-crowned wrens, & creepers bring-out their broods.
• 1776: July 23, 1776 – Walnuts abound, but are rather small & spotted.
• 1775: July 23, 1775 – Birds are much influenced in their choice of food by colour: for tho’ white currans are a much sweeter fruit than red; yet they seldom touch the former ’til they have devoured every bunch of the latter.  The male & female ants of the little yellow & little black sorts, leaving their nests, fill the air.  The females seem big with eggs.  They also run about on the turf, & seem in great agitation.  The females wander away, & form new colonies when pregnant.
• 1773: July 23, 1773 – Turnips begin to be hoed.  In general a good crop.  The young clover among the corn is fine this year.
• 1772: July 23, 1772 – Martins begin to congregate on the tower.
• 1770: July 23, 1770 – Wheat is very backward: hardly any ears appear.  It is worthy of notice that on my clayey soils horses prefer grass that grows on a sand-walk, tho’ shaded & dripped by a tall hedge, to that which springs from the natural ground in a sunny & open situation.
• 1768: July 23, 1768 – Martins begin to congregate on the maypole.  Ricked my little mead, & finish’d my Hay-making.

• 1792: July 22, 1792 – Took the black-bird’s nest the fourth time: it contained squab young.
• 1791: July 22, 1791 – Children bring wood-strawberries in great plenty.  Made straw-berry jam.  Gathered currans, & rasps for jam: my rasps are fair & fine.  The farmers at Selborne had not half a crop of hay.  Hops thrive at this place.  Merise, wild cherries, over at the vicarage, ripen.
• 1790: July 22, 1790 – A man brought me a cuckoo, found in the nest of a water-wagtail among the rocks of the hollow lane leading to Rood.  This bird was almost fledge.
• 1787: July 22, 1787 – Mushrooms appear on the short Lythe.
• 1785: July 22, 1785 – Made black curran-jelly, & rasp. jam.
• 1784: July 22, 1784 – The wind broke-off a great bough from Molly White’s horse-chestnut tree.
• 1781: July 22, 1781 – All the first meadow-hay about us was spoiled: all the latter was ricked in delicate order. Late in the evening the swifts course round with their young high in the air. They are some times so numerous that one might suspect they are joined by parties from other villages. The fly-catchers have quite forsaken my house & garden: they never breed twice.
• 1778: July 22, 1778 – Sowed first endive.  Planted-out Savoys, choux de Milan, cabbages, &c.  The ground works well, & falls very fine.  Sowed parsley, which has failed before.  Planted out more annuals.
• 1776: July 22, 1776 – Bees swarm the swarm of a swarm, which swarmed itself at the beginning of June.  A neighbour has had nine swarms from four stalls: two apiece from three of them, & three from one.
• 1775: July 22, 1775 – The swifts are so fledge before they quit the nest that they are not to be distinguished from their dams on the wing; yet from the encrease of their numbers, & from their unusual manner of clinging to walls & towers one may perceive that several are now out.  And no wonder that they should begin to bestir themselves, since they will probably withdraw in a fortnight.
• 1774: July 22, 1774 – Hay well made at last.  Swifts pursue & drive away an hawk: but do not dart down & strike him with that fury that swallows express on the same occasion.  In these attacks they make some noise with their mouths, squeaking a little.
• 1773: July 22, 1773 – Wheat is now at 17s pds. per load, & very little left in the kingdom.
• 1772: July 22, 1772 – Pease begin to be hacked.