The Natural History of Selborne

• 1792: August 31, 1792 – Many moor-hens on Comb-wood pond.
• 1791: August 31, 1791 – Cut 31 cucumbers.  Fly-catcher still appears.
• 1790: August 31, 1790 – Farmer Spencer’s wheat-rick, when it was near finished, parted, & fell down.  Charles, & Betty White came from Fyfield.
• 1789: August 31, 1789 – Gathered a bushel-basket of well-grown cucumbers, 238 in number.  Molly White, & T.H. White left us, & went to London.
• 1787: August 31, 1787 – Young hirundines cluster on the dead boughs of the walnut tree.
• 1783: August 31, 1783 – Tremendous thunder-storm in London.  The stream which rises in James Knight’s upper pond has failed all this summer, as it does all very dry summers; so that the channel is dry down to the middle of the short Lithe; from whence there is always water running ’till it joins the Well-head stream at little Dorton.  This spring, which is at the bottom of the Church-litten-closes, seems to rise out of the hill on which the Church is built.  Timothy begins to frequent the border under the fruit-wall for the sake of warmth.
• 1782: August 31, 1782 – Began to turn the horses into the great meadow: there is a fine head of grass. In the month of Aug. there fell 8 inch, 28h. of rain!
• 1781: August 31, 1781 – Began to use endive, which is large & well-blanched. No swifts. We seached the eaves to no purpose. In searching the eaves for the young swifts, we found in a nest two callow dead swifts, on which had been formed a second nest. These nests were full of the black shining cases of the hippoboscae hirundinis.
• 1780: August 31, 1780 – The season is so dry that no trufle-hunter has yet tryed my brother’s grove.
• 1779: August 31, 1779 – The grass burns.
• 1777: August 31, 1777 – ‘Til now the whole month of Aug. has been dry and pleasant.  The evenings begin to feel chilly.
• 1776: August 31, 1776 – Fine harvest day.  Some corn housed.
• 1774: August 31, 1774 – Spitting rain, with wind all day.  Wheat begins to grow.  Several nectarines rot on the trees.  Peaches rot: plums burst & fall off.
• 1770: August 31, 1770 – Hop-picking begins.  Plants in the garden suffer from want of moisture.  Great N. Aurora considering the bright moon.
• 1768: August 31, 1768 – Grapes begin to turn colour.  Nectarines ripe.  Stoparola brings out its young.

• 1791: August 30, 1791 – Mr Hale begins his hops near the Pound field.  Farmer Hoar says that during this late blowning weather his well was raised some rounds of the rope.
• 1790: August 30, 1790 – Cut 152 cucumbers.  A fine harvest day: much wheat bound, & much gleaning gathered.
• 1789: August 30, 1789 – Michaelmass daisies begin to blow.
• 1786: August 30, 1786 – Hop picking becomes general.  The women earn good wages this year: some of them pick 24 bush. in a day, at 3 half-pence per bushel.
• 1785: August 30, 1785 – The kings field is open to the down.  No mushrooms to be found with us: the case was the same last year.
• 1783: August 30, 1783 – Planted-out in a bed a great number of Seedling-polyanths: seed from Bramshot-place.
• 1782: August 30, 1782 – The air is chilly, & has an October-feel.
• 1781: August 30, 1781 – Between nine & ten at night a thunder-storm whith much vivd lightening began to grow up from the N.W. & W.: but it took a circuit round to the S. & E. & so missed us.  We had only the skirts of the tempest, & a little heavy rain for a short time.  Ten miles off the the southward there were vast rains.
• 1777: August 30, 1777 – Finished tiling the new parlor in good dry condition just before the rain came.  The wall & timbers will be in much better order for this circumstance.  * The pair of martins brought-out all their young August 26: they still roost in the nest.  The nest was begun June 21.  Woolmer-forest produces young teals, & young large snipes; but never, that we can find, any young jack-snipes.
• 1776: August 30, 1776 – Mr Woods of Chilgrove thinks he improves his flock by turning the east-country poll-rams among his horned ewes.  The east-country poll sheep have shorter legs, & finer wool; & black faces, & spotted fore-legs; & a tuft of wooll in their fore-heads.  Much corn of all sorts still abroad.  Was wetted thro’ on the naked downs near Parham-ash.  Some cuckoos remain.  N.B.  From Lewes to Brightehelmstone, & thence to Beeding-hill, where the wheat-ear traps are frequent no wheat-ears are to be seen: But on the downs west of Beeding, we saw many.   A plain proof this, that those traps make a considerable havock among that species of birds.
• 1774: August 30, 1774 – Pulled the first Wrench’s radishes: they are mild & well-flavoured: are long & tap-rooted: bright red above ground, & milk-white under.
• 1773: August 30, 1773 – Tyed up endives.  Some people have finished wheat-harvest.
• 1772: August 30, 1772 – Mich. daisy begins to blow.
• 1771: August 30, 1771 – Young stoparolas abound.  Swallows congregate in vast flocks.  Wheat housed.
• 1768: August 30, 1768 – The goatsucker still appears.

• 1791: August 29, 1791 – Hop-picking begins in Hartley gardens.  Cut 96 cucumbers.
• 1786: August 29, 1786 – Tyed-up the unmoved endives.
• 1785: August 29, 1785 – John Hale, & Farmer Spencer begin to pick hops.
• 1784: August 29, 1784 – A Faringdon man shot a young fern-owl in his orchard.
• 1782: August 29, 1782 – The store-sheep on the down are in good case.  Some men began to house wheat before the shower.  Were forced to light a fire in the parlor.  On this day the Royal George, a 100 gun ship, was unfortunately over-set at Spithead, as she was heaving down.  Admiral Kempenfelt, & about 900 people, men, women, & children, were lost.  The lower port-holes being open the ship filled, & sunk in about 5 minutes.
• 1780: August 29, 1780 – On this day the people at Selborne were to begin picking of hops: the crop of hops is prodigious.
• 1779: August 29, 1779 – House-crickets are heard in all the gardens, & court-yards.  One came to my kitchen-hearth.
• 1776: August 29, 1776 – Full moon.  The rams begin to play court to the ewes.
• 1775: August 29, 1775 – Showers and sun.
• 1774: August 29, 1774 – Gathered the first plate of peaches: ripe but not high-flavoured.  First bleached endive.
• 1773: August 29, 1773 – A little black curculio damages the peaches by boring holes in them before they are quite ripe.  I do not remember this insect on my wall-fruit before.  They damage the leaves also.
• 1772: August 29, 1772 – Hop-picking begins.  Sultry.  Wheat housed in cold condition.  Orleans-plums become ripe.
• 1771: August 29, 1771 – Fog, sun, brisk wind.  Sweet day. Wheat begins to be housed.

• 1792: August 28, 1792 – Men make wheat-ricks.  Mr Hale’s rick fell. Vivid rain-bow.
• 1789: August 28, 1789 – Colchicum autumnale, naked boys, blows.  Wheat-harvest goes on finely.
• 1788: August 28, 1788 – A bat comes out many times in a day, even in sunshine to catch flies: it is probably a female that has young, & is hungry from giving suck: the swallows strike at the bat.
• 1785: August 28, 1785 – Boys bring the 22nd, 23,rd, & 24th wasps nest.  Many wasps at the plum-trees.
• 1782: August 28, 1782 – Wheat grows as it lies: & the lodged wheat uncut is in a bad state.
• 1780: August 28, 1780 – There were at the King’s house at Winton 1600 Spanish prisoners; rather small men, & some very swarthy: here & there a fairish lad.
• 1776: August 28, 1776 – The tortoise eats voraciously: is particularly fond of kidney-beans.  Vast halo round the moon.
• 1773: August 28, 1773 – Some few grapes begin to turn red.  Peaches begin to ripen & are large & good.  Nectarines look well: they are ruddy & very large.
• 1771: August 28, 1771 – Dark, grey, & soft.  People bind their wheat.
• 1769: August 28, 1769 – Much wheat abroad in this parish.  Plums and pears crack with the rain.

The Spanish prisoners were I suppose taken in a naval affair during the War of American Independence, but I’m drawing a blank on “the King’s House at Winton”. There’s a stately home by that name near Edinburgh, but that was never a Royal palace; and a logical-sounding parish of Winton near Bournemouth, which however only aquired that name much later. If anyone can shed light o incident, please use the contact form– I’ve had to close comments after a sudden onslaught of spam. Apologies as well for the continued shabiness of the site– I’ve had a much busier summer than anticipated.

• 1792: August 27, 1792 – A fern-owl this evening showed-off in a very unusual, & entertaining manner, by hawking round, & round the circumference of my great spreading oak for twenty times following, keeping mostly close to the grass but occasionally glancing up amidst the boughs of the tree.  This amusing bird was then in pursuit of a brood of some particular phalaena belonging to the oak, of which there are several sorts; & exhibited on the occasion a command of wing superior, I think, to that of the swallow itself.  Fern-owls have attachment to oaks, no doubt on account of food: for the next evening we saw one again several times among the boughs of the same tree; but it did not skim round it’s stem over the grass, as on the evening before.  In May these birds find the Scarabaeus melolontha on the oak; & the Scarabaeus solstitialis at Midsummer.  These peculiar birds can only be watched & observed for two hours in the twenty-four, & then in dubious twilight, an hour after sun-set & an hour before sun-rise.
• 1790: August 27, 1790 – Cold & comfortless weather.
• 1789: August 27, 1789 – Tho. Holt White comes from Fyfield.
• 1787: August 27, 1787 – Molly White & Nep. Tom rode to Fyfield.
• 1786: August 27, 1786 – Made five bottles, & a pint of catsup.
• 1779: August 27, 1779 – Full moon.  My well is shallow & the water foul.
• 1778: August 27, 1778 – Selborne people begin hop-picking.  The tops of beeches begin to turn yellow.
• 1777: August 27, 1777 – The large winged female ants, after they have wandered from their nests lose their wings & settle new colonies: are in their flying state food for birds, particulary hirundines.  No wasps: & if there were, there is no fruit for them.
• 1776: August 27, 1776 – Grey, sun, sweet day.
• 1775: August 27, 1775 – 8 more wasps nests; in all 25 have been destroyed round the village.
• 1773: August 27, 1773 – Vast quantities of nuts & filberts.
• 1770: August 28, 1770 – Delicate harvest weather.  Many loads of wheat housed.  Great bat appears; flies strongly and vigorously & very high.  I call this rare species vespertilio altivolans.
• 1770: August 27, 1770 – Sweet harvest-weather.  Wheat in general is light.  Hops grow very fast: a vast crop.
• 1768: August 27, 1768 – Much wheat housed.  Blue mist.  Yellow-hammers have young still, whcih they feed with tipulae.

• 1792: August 26, 1792 – A fly-catcher brings out a brood of young: & yet they will all withdraw & leave us by the 10th of next month.
• 1791: August 26, 1791 – My potatoes come in, & are good.
• 1790: August 26, 1790 – Planted out a bed of borecole, & three long rows of curled endive.  Bat comes out before the swallows are gone to roost.
• 1788: August 26, 1788 – Mr Hale & Tim Turner begin to pick hops in the Foredown.  Hale picked 350 bushels: his hops are large & fine.
• 1787: August 26, 1787 – Timothy the Tortoise, who has spent the two last months amidst the umbrageous forests of the asparagus-beds, begins now to be sensible of the chilly autumnal mornings; & therefore suns himself under the laruel-hedge, into which he retires at night.  He is become sluggish, & does not seem to take any food.
• 1786: August 26, 1786 – Earwigs damage the wall-fruit before it gets ripe, warm & moist. Young fowls die at Newton. Mushrooms are brought in the great plenty.
• 1783: August 26, 1783 – Some fly-catchers, that haunt about the church, take the flies off the sides of the towers much adroitness.  Swallows do the same in the decline of summer.
• 1778: August 26, 1778 – The failure of turnips this year is very great.
• 1777: August 26, 1777 – A spotted water-hen shot in the forest.
• 1776: August 26, 1776 – While the cows are feeding in moist low pastures, broods of wagtails, white & grey, run round them close up to their noses, & under their very bellies, availing themselves of the flies, & insects that settle on their legs, & probably finding worms & larvae that are roused by the trampling of their feet. Nature is such an oeconomist, that the most incongrous animals can avail themselves of each other! Interest makes strange friendships.
• 1772: August 26, 1772 – Wheat begins to grow under hedges.
• 1771: August 26, 1771 – Nuthatch chirps much. No swifts since 22nd.
• 1770: August 26, 1770 – Young swallows & martins congregate in prodigious swarms.
• 1768: August 26, 1768 – White dew.  Peaches ripen.  Barley begins to be cut.  Much wheat housed.

• 1789: August 25, 1789 – Sweet harvest weather.  Wheat ricked & housed.  Mr & Mrs S. Barker, & Miss E. Barker left us.
• 1785: August 25, 1785 – The dripping season has, this day, lasted six weeks; it has done some harm to the wheat, & retarded wheat-harvest; but has been of infinite service to the grass, & turnips, &c.
• 1784: August 25, 1784 – Sad harvest weather.  This proves a very expensive, & troublesome harvest to the farmers.  Pease suffer much & will be lost out of the pod.  My great apricot-tree appeared in the morning to have been robbed of some of it’s ripe fruit by a dog that had stood on his hind legs, & eaten-off some of the lower apricots, several of which were gnawn, & left on the ground, with some shoots of the tree.  On the border were many fresh prints of a dogs feet.  I have know a dog eat ripe goose-berries, as they hung on the trees.  Many wallnuts on the tree over the stable: the sort is good, but the tree seldom bears.
• 1783: August 25, 1783 – Muscae domesticae swarm in the kitchen.  When the sun breaks-out, the roofs, & grass-walks reek.  Men cut their field-beans.
• 1782: August 25, 1782 – Clays pond runs over.  Not one wasp or hornet to be seen: nor if there were, is there any fruit to support them.  On such a summer, it seems quite a wonder that the whole race is not extinct.
• 1780: August 25, 1780 – The thermomr which on the stair-case stood at 67, in the wine-vault became 60 3/4; & again when it was 66 on the stair-case, by being plunged into a bucket of water, fresh-drawn, it fell to 51.
• 1775: August 25, 1775 – Sr Simeon Stuart begins to pick his hops.  Wasps have begun on the grapes.  Seventeen wasps nests destroyed.  Peaches are gathered every day, being injured by the wasps: they are not full ripe.  *Twaite, in Saxon is ground cleared from wood, & plowed; Woddan is not a way, but the verb to go: wud is wood in Saxon.
• 1773: August 25, 1773 – Tho’ there was a brisk air from the S. all the afternoon; yet the clouds in an upper region flew swiftly all the while from ye N. in great quantities.
• 1772: August 25, 1772 – Much wheat abroad.  Strong gusts.  Much rain.  The ground is well-moistened.
• 1771: August 25, 1771 – Wheat not ripe at Faringdon.  Winter weather.  Oats & barley ripe before wheat.
• 1770: August 25, 1770 – Wheat begins to be housed.  Trenched out celeri.
• 1769: August 25, 1769 – Great showers about.  Male & female ants migrate at a great rate filling the ground & air.
• 1768: August 25, 1768 – Cucumber plants begin to decline.  Tyed up endive.  Large showers about.

• 1792: August 24, 1792 – John Berriman’s hops at the end of the Foredown very fine.
• 1791: August 24, 1791 – Gathered kidney-beans, scarlet.  Cut 80 cucumbers.
• 1789: August 24, 1789 – A fern-owl sits about on my field walks.
• 1788: August 24, 1788 – A stag, which has haunted Hartley wood the summer thro’ was roused by a man that was mowing oats just at the back of village.  Several young persons purused him with guns, & happening to rouse him again on the side of Nore hill, shot at him; & then collecting some hounds from Emshot, & Hawkley, they drove him to a large wood in the parish of Westmeon, where they lost him, & called-off their dogs.
• 1787: August 24, 1787 – Nep. Ben White left us.
• 1784: August 24, 1784 – White turnip-radishes mild, & good, & large.
• 1783: August 24, 1783 – Paid for four wasps-nests.  On this day the Duke of Kingstone India man, outward bound, Captain Nutt, was burnt at sea off the island of Ceylon.  Mr Charles Etty, one of the mates, was wonderfully saved, tho’ he could not swim an inch, by clinging to a yard-arm that had been flung over board; by which he was kept above water about an hour & 1/4, ’till he was taken up by a boat, & carryed, naked as he was, aboard the Vansittart India-man Captain Agnew, who treated him with great humanity, & landed him in a few days at Madras.  This ship, cargoe, & more than 70 lives were lost by the carelessness of a mate in drawing rum, who permitted the candle to catch the spirits; so that the whole vessel was in flames at once, without any chance of extinguishing them.  She burnt about four hours, & then blew up: so that nothing was saved except what cloaths some had on their backs.  She had soldiers aboard, & some passengers, & a few women, & children.  Potatoes very fine, tho’ the ground has scarce ever been moistened since they were planted.  They were also very good last year, tho’ the summer was mostly wet & cold.  Fern-owl glances, & darts about in my garden in pursuit of phalaenae, with inconceivable swiftness.
• 1782: August 24, 1782 – Newton great pond runs over.
• 1781: August 24, 1781 – Tho’ white butterflies abound, & lay many eggs on the cabbages; yet thro’ over-heat, & want of moisture, they do not hatch and turn to palmers; but dry & shrivel to nothing.  One swift still frequents the eaves of the church; & moreover has, I discover, two young nearly fledged, which show their white chins at the mouth of the crevice.  This incident of so late a brood of swifts is an exception to the whole of my observations ever since I have bestowed any attention on that species of hirundines!
• 1775: August 24, 1775 – Wasps abound, & destroy the fruit.  Clouds about.  Worms copulate.
• 1773: August 24, 1773 – Peaches & nectarines redden.  China-asters begin to blow.
• 1772: August 24, 1772 – Trench more celeri.  Sowed spinage.  Hops suffer from the wind.  Planted small cabbages.
• 1768: August 24, 1768 – Much wheat bound up in the afternoon.  Goldfinch sings.  Oats are cutting.

• 1792: August 23, 1792 – Some wheat bound; & some gleaning.  I have not seen one wasp.
• 1790: August 23, 1790 – John Hale made a large wheat-rick on a staddle.
• 1789: August 23, 1789 – Boy brought me the rudiments of a hornet’s nest, with some maggots in it.  Every ant-hill is in a strange hurry & confusion; & all the winged ants, agitated by some violent impulse, are leaving their homes; &, bent on emigration, swarm by myriads in the air, to the great emoulment of the hirundines, which fare luxuriously.  Those that escape the swallows return no more to their nests, but looking out for new retreats, lay a foundation for future colonies.  All the females at these times are pregnant.  The males that escape being eaten, wander away & die.
• 1788: August 23, 1788 – Some mushrooms spring on my hotbeds.  Mr Sam Barker, from a measurement taken, adjudged Wolmer pond to contain 66 acres, & an half, exclusive of the arm at the E. end: the pond keeper at Frinsham avers that his pond measures 80 acres.  Zizania aquatica, Linn: called by the English setlers wild Rice; & by the Canadian French– Folle Avoin.  In consequence of an application to a Gentleman at Quebec, my Bro. Thomas White received a cask of the seed of this plant, part of which was sent down to Selborne.  His desire was to have received it in the ear, as it then would have been much more likely to have retain’d it’s vegetative faculty: but this part of his request was not attended to; for the seed arrived stript even of it’s husk.  It has a pleasant taste, & makes a pudding equal to rice, or millet.  This kind of corn, growing naturally in the water, is of great service to the wild natives of the south west part of N. America: for as Carver in his travels says, they have no farther care & trouble with it than only to tye it up in bunches when it first comes into ear, & when ripe to gather it into their boats; every person or family knowing their own by some distinction in the bandage.  Carver observes, that it would be very advantageous to new settlers in that country, as it furnishes at once a store of corn the first year; & by that means removes the distress & difficulty incident to new colonies till their first crop begins to ripen.  Linnaeus has given this plant the name of Zizania: but what could induce the celebrated Botanist to degrade this very beneficial grain with the title of that pernicious weed which the enemy in the parable served among the good-corn while men slept, does not so easily appear.  (Matt. 13 chapter)
• 1787: August 23, 1787 – Much wheat carried.  The Ewel, & Pound-field thrown open.  Cool autumnal feel.  Nightingales seen in Honey-lane: they were the last that I observed.  Cut at one time 191 fine cucumbers.
• 1786: August 23, 1786 – We kept a young fern-owl for several days in a cage, & fed it with bread, & milk.  It was moping, & mute by day; but, being a night bird, began to be alert as soon as it was dusk. *Sent it back to the brakes among which it was first found.
• 1785: August 23, 1785 – Martin’s & swallows congregate by hundreds on the church & tower.  These birds never cluster in this manner, but on sunny days.  They are chiefly the first broods, rejected by their dams, who are busyed with a second family.
• 1782: August 23, 1782 – The pond on Selborne-down is brimfull, & has run over.
• 1781: August 23, 1781 – Caught 8 hornets with a twig tipped with bird-lime.  No wasps in my garden, nor at the grocer’s, or butcher’s shop.  Five or six hornets will carry off a whole nectarine in the space of a day.
• 1779: August 23, 1779 – Sun, clouds, thunder shower, red even: Great blackness.
• 1778: August 23, 1778 – Flies torment the horses in a most unusual manner.
• 1775: August 23, 1775 – Sixteen wasps nests destroyed.
• 1774: August 23, 1774 – Missel-thrushes congregate & are very wild.  Thistle-down floats.  Thompson, who makes this appearance a circumstance attendant on his summer evening,
  “Wide o’er the thistly lawn, as swells the breeze,/A whitening shower of vegetable down/Amusive floats…”
  seems to have misapplyed it as to the season: since thistles which do not blow ’til the summer-solstice, cannot shed their down ’til autumn.
• 1772: August 23, 1772 – Sun.  Showers with wind.  Vast showers.  Young stoparolas come forth.
• 1771: August 23, 1771 – Young swallows & martins come out every day.  Still weather.  Wheat-harvest becomes pretty general.

• 1792: August 22, 1792 – The seeds of the lime begins to fall.  Some wheat under hedges begins to grow.
• 1790: August 22, 1790 – There is a covey of partidges in the North field, seventeen in number.
• 1789: August 22, 1789 – Mr Ben White came to us from Newton.
• 1788: August 22, 1788 – The swallows are very busy skimming & hovering over a fallow that has been penned; probably the dung of the sheep attracts many insects, particularly scarabs.
• 1786: August 22, 1786 – Mushrooms are brought me from Hartley.  I do not meet with one wasp.  Young fern-owls are found, a second brood.
• 1782: August 22, 1782 – Goody Hammond goes off from the garden to glean wheat.  The quantity of rain from Jan. 1st 1782 to Aug 23rd is 40 inc. 52 h.
• 1780: August 22, 1780 – Timothy is sluggish, & scarce moves.
• 1772: August 22, 1772 – Planted-out endive, & trenched some celeri.  Ground strangely hard, & bound: will require much rain to soften it.  Invigorated by this burning season such legions of Chrysomelae oleraceae saltatoriae (vulg: called turnep-flies) swarm in the fields that they destroy every turnep as fast as it springs: they abound also in gardens, & devour not only the tender plants, but the tough outer leaves of cabbages.  When disturbed on the cabbages they leap in such multitueds as to make a pattering noise on the leaves like a shower of rain. They seem to relish the leaves of the horse-radish.
• 1771: August 22, 1771 – Bank-martins bring out their second brood.  Swifts.  No swifts seen after this day.
• 1768: August 22, 1768 – Young gold-finches come forth.  Wheat in very bad condition.

Notes: The ‘turnep-fly’ is now known as Phyllotreta, the flea beetle. No less a personage than Sir Humphrey Davy suggested a mix of lime, soot and urine to deter the turnip-fly– a method still recommended on the small scale (minus the urine).