The Natural History of Selborne

Title page to Robert Boyle’sThe Sceptical Chymist, concerning itself with pneumatics, or the laws whereby air is condensed, & rarifyed.

• 1792: August 7, 1792 – Several of my neighbours went up the Hill (this being the day of the great review at Bagshot heath) whence they heard distinctly the discharges from the ordnance, & small arms, & saw the clouds of smoke from the guns.  The wind being N.E. they smelled, or seemed to smell, the scent of the gunpowder.  Wickham bushes, the scene of action, is more than 20 miles from hence.  The crouds of people assembled upon this occasion were great beyond anything seen at such meetings!
• 1791: August 7, 1791 – Received from Farnham, well packed in a box, a picture of a mule pheasant, painted by Mr Elmer, & given me by Lord Stawell.  I have fixed it in a gilt, burnished frame, & hung it in my great parlor, where it makes an elegant piece of furniture.  The first broods of swallows, & house-martins, which congregate on roofs, & trees, are very numerous, & yet I have not this year one nest about my buildings.
• 1790: August 7, 1790 – Strawberries from the woods are over; the crop has been prodigious.  The decanter, into which wine from the cool cellar was poured, became clouded over with a thick condensation standing in drops.  This appearance, which is never to be seen but in warm weather, is a curious phaenomenon, & exhibits matter for speculation to the modern philosopher.  A friend of mine enquires whether the “rorantia pocula” of Tully in his “de senectute” had any reference to such appearances.  But there is great reason to suppose that the ancients were not accurate philosophers enough to pay much regard to such occurrences.  They knew little of pneumatics, or the laws whereby air is condensed, & rarifyed; & much less that water is dissolved in air, & reducible therefrom by cold.  If they saw such dews on their statues, or metal utensiles, they looked on them as ominous, & were awed with a superstitious horror.  Thus Virgil makes his weeping statues, & sweating brazen vessles prognostic of the violent death of Julius Caesar:.. “maestrum illacrymat templis ebur, aeraq sudant.” Georgic 1st
• 1789: August 7, 1789 – Mr & Mrs Barker, & Miss Eliz. Barker rode to Blackdown to see the prospect, & returned by 3 o’clock: they set out at six in the morning.
• 1788: August 7, 1788 – Two or three beeches below Bradshot are quite loaded with mast.  The King’s field is cleared, & thrown open.
• 1785: August 7, 1785 – Sarah Dewey came to assist in the family.
• 1784: August 7, 1784 – Many hop-poles are blown down.  Cool, autumnal feel.  Days much shortened.
• 1782: August 7, 1782 – Vast rains in the night.  The quantity of rain since Jan. 1st 1782, is 36 in. 1 h.!!!
• 1779: August 7, 1779 – Rain, rain, rain.  Wheat under the hedges begins to grow.
• 1777: August 7, 1777 – Finished the chimney of my parlor: it measures 30 feet from the hearth to the top.
• 1775: August 7, 1775 – Timothy, Mrs Snookes’ old tortoise has been kept full 30 years in her court before the house, wieghs six pounds three quarters, & one ounce.  It was never weighed before, but seems to be much grown since it came.
• 1774: August 7, 1774 – Much wheat blighted. Swifts have not appear’d for these two evenings.
• 1773: August 7, 1773 – The flight of the scarabaeus solstitiales seems to be over.  Measles still in some families.
• 1771: August 7, 1771 – Rye-harvest begins.  Procured the above-mentioned specimen of the bat, a male.
• 1770: August 7, 1770 – Those maggots that make worm-holes in tables, chairs, bed-posts, &c., & destroy wooden-furniture, especially where there is any sap, are the larvae of the ptinus pectinicornis.  This insect, it is probable, deposits its eggs on the surface, & the worms eat their way in.  In their holes they turn into the pupa state, & so come foth winged in July: eating their way thro’ the valences or curtains of a bed, or any other furniture that happens to obstruct their pasasge.  They seem to be most inclined to breed in beech; hence beech will not make lasting utensils, or furniture.  If their eggs are deposited on the surface, frequent rubbings will preserve wooden furniture.
• 1769: August 7, 1769 – Showers to the S.  Wheat, rye, oats, barley cutting round the forest.
• 1768: August 7, 1768 – Cold dew.  Mulberry begins to cast some leaves.  Tops of beeches in the hanger begin to look pale.