The Natural History of Selborne

• 1790: October 21, 1790 – I conclude that the Holiburne trufler finds encouragement in our woods, & hangers, as he frequently passes along the village: he is a surly fellow, & not communicative.  He is attended by two little cur-dogs, which he leads in a string.
• 1789: October 21, 1789 – Woodcock seen on the down, among the fern.  Finished gathering the apples, many of which are fair fruit.  Shoveled the zigzag.  Leaves fall.  My wall-nut trees, & some ashes are naked.
• 1787: October 21, 1787 – William Dewye Senr. who is now living, has been a certificate man at Selborne since the year 1729, some time in the month of April. He is a parishioner at the town of Wimborn-Minster at the County of Dorset.
• 1785: October 21, 1785 – Timothy the tortoise lies in the laurel-hedge, but is not buried.
• 1784: October 21, 1784 – This day at 4 o’clock P: M: Edmd White launched an air-balloon from Selborne-down, measuring about 8 feet & 1/2 in length, & sixteen feet in circumference.  It went off in a steady, & grand manner to the E, & settled in about 15 minutes near Todmoor on the verge of the forest.
• 1783: October 21, 1783 – Nasturtiums in high bloom, & untouched by the frost!
• 1781: October 21, 1781 – The distress for water in many places is great.  A notion has always obtained, that in England hot summers are productive of fine crops of wheat: yet in the years 1780, and 1781, tho’ the heat was intense, the wheat was much mildewed, & the crop light.  Quaere, Does not severe heat, while the straw is milky, occasion it’s juices to exsude, which being extravasted, occasion spots, discolour the stems & blades, & injure the health of the plants?  The heat of the two last summers has scalded & scorched the stems of the wall-fruit trees, & has fetched-off the bark.
• 1776: October 21, 1776 – A cock pheasant flew over my house, & across the village to the hanger.
• 1775: October 21, 1775 – The storm on thursday night tore all the remaining flowers to pieces.  *With us the country people call coppices, or brush-wood, ris, or rice: now hris in Saxon signifies frondes, & is no doubt whence our provincial term originates.  Hraed hriz is frondes celeres: hence probably Red Rice, the name of a hunting-seat standing in the midst of a coppice at Andover.
• 1773: October 21, 1773 – No swallows or martins observed.
• 1772: October 21, 1772 – Under the eaves of a neighbourning house is a martin’s nest full of young ready to flie.  The old ones hawk for flies with great alertness.
• 1769: October 21, 1769 – Merulae torquatae still about: the abound more, & stay longer than in former autumns.  Oedicnemus clamours very loudly.  Leaves fall apace.  Barometer falls apace.
• 1768: October 21, 1768 – Swallow.

• 1790: October 20, 1790 – Spring-keepers come up in the well-bucket.  How they get down there does not appear: they are called by Mr Derham– squillae aquaticae.
• 1789: October 20, 1789 – Gathered in nonpareils, & some royal russets.
• 1788: October 20, 1788 – Leaves fall.  The pound field is sown with American wheat.
• 1786: October 20, 1786 – Rover springs several pheasants in Harteley-wood.  We find many large coveys of partridges.
• 1785: October 20, 1785 – Much hay-making all the way.  Hay housing at Alton.
• 1782: October 20, 1782 – No corn abroad but a few vetches. Lord Howe had a skirmish with the combined fleet, in which he ad 68 killed, and 208 wounded.
• 1778: October 20, 1778 – Planted long rows of tulips in the garden, & field.  Linnets flock.
• 1775: October 20, 1775 – One swallow near Wallingford.  strong wind.  Acorns abound: the hogs in the lanes & woods seem to be half fat.
• 1772: October 20, 1772 – Woodcock returns.  Papiliones and muscae abound on the asters.  Redwings return.
• 1771: October 20, 1771 – Mild, & sun.  Sweet day, large halo round the moon.
• 1770: October 20, 1770 – Turdus iliacus.  Rain all night.
• 1769: October 20, 1769 – Linnets, chaffinches, yellow-hammers congregate.  Skylark sings sweetly.  Glowworms appear.

• 1792: October 19, 1792 – Made presents of berberries to several neighbours.  Ring-ouzel seen in the King’s field.
• 1790: October 19, 1790 – My well is very low, & the water foul.
• 1789: October 19, 1789 – Fierce, driving rain!
• 1786: October 19, 1786 – Men pull up turnips, & stack them.  My balsoms in pots, that have been in bloom four months, now begin to fade.
• 1782: October 19, 1782 – Lord Howe completed the relief of Gibraltar.
• 1781: October 19, 1781 – On this ill-fated day Lord Cornwallis, & all his army surrendered themselves prisoners of war to the united forces of France & America at York-town in Virginia.
• 1778: October 19, 1778 – The vines are naked, & the grapes exposed to the frost.  The crop is very large.  The farmers complain that the ground is too dry for sowing.
• 1775: October 19, 1775 – Vast rain with stormy wind, this storm damaged my trees, & hedges.  This storm occasioned much damage at sea, & in the river thames.
• 1774: October 19, 1774 – Dark, & cold, dark, bright.
• 1773: October 19, 1773 – Venus has become an evening star. Vivid Aurora bor.
• 1769: October 19, 1769 – Large flock of of goldfinches.  The sun is very hot.  The air is full of spider’s webs.
• 1768: October 19, 1768 – Herrings.

• 1788: October 18, 1788 – Bror. T. White planted two Lombardy poplars in the corners of the pound: & a Sycomore on the Plestor near the pound.
• 1780: October 18, 1780 – Jet-ants still in motion.
• 1770: October 18, 1770 – Cornix cinerea.  Swallows.  Some Martins at Findon.  Vast floods on the Sussex rivers: the meadows all under water.  Vast flood at Houghton.  Martins, crossbeaks.  The Sussex-rivers are very liable to floods, which occasion great loss & inconvenience to the Farmers.  The cattle from this time must be taken into the yards to live on straw, because the meads, which would have maintained them many weeks longer, are all under water.  The standing grass is often flooded in summer.  They call their meads by the river-sides, brooks.

• 1791: October 17, 1791 – Saw a wood-cock on the down among the fern: Fyfield flushed it.
• 1790: October 17, 1790 – Gracious street stream is dry from James Kinght’s ponds, where it rises, to the foot bridge at the bottom of the church litton closes.  Near that bridge, in the corner, the spring is perennial, & runs to Dorton, where it joins the Well-head stream.
• 1787: October 17, 1787 – Gathered-in the last apples, in all about 8 bushels.  Planted 100 cabbages to stand the winter.
• 1785: October 17, 1785 – Timothy Turner finished the mowing of Bakers-hill.
• 1783: October 17, 1783 – Mowed & burnt the dead grass in my fields.  Rooks on the hill attended by a numerous flock of starlings.  The tortoise gets under the laurel-hedge, but does not bury himself.  Neps. T. H. & H. Holt white returned from Fyfield.  … “a crouded umbrage, dusk & dun,/Of ev’ry hue, from wan, declining green;/To sooty dark.”  Thomson.
• 1782: October 17, 1782 – No baking pears.  Gathered-in medlars.  Dug up carrots, a good crop, but small in size.  THe tortoise not only gets into the sun under the fruit-wall; but he tilts one edge of his shell against the wall, so as to incline his back ot it’s rays: by which contrivance he obtains more heat than if he lay in his natural position.  And yet this poor reptile has never read, that planes inclining to the horizon receive more heat from the sun than any other elevation!  At four P.M. he retires to bed under the broad foliage of a holyhock.  He has ceased to eat for some time.
• 1781: October 17, 1781 – Greatham-mill can work but 3 hours in the day.
• 1778: October 17, 1778 – Gathered-in the berberries, a great crop.
• 1775: October 17, 1775 – Turkies get up on the boughs of oaks in pursuit of acorns.
• 1769: October 17, 1769 – One martin appears.

Balloon by Thomas Bewick. To read the entire entry on the balloon (or any other entry over 500 words), click on the entry date, it will take you to the full post.

• 1790: October 16, 1790 – Red wings return, & are seen on Selborne down. There are no haws this year for the redwings, & field fares.
• 1789: October 16, 1789 – Colchicums, a fine double sort, still in bloom.  Ivy blows.  Some mushrooms with thick stems, & pale gills.
• 1786: October 16, 1786 – Bror. & Sister Benj. came.
• 1784: October 16, 1784 – Mr Blanchard passed by us in full sight at about a quarter before three P. M. in an air-balloon!!!  He mounted at Chelsea about noon; but came down at Sunbury to permit Mr Sheldon to get out; his weight over-loading the machine.  At a little before four P. M. Mr Bl. landed at the town of Romsey in the county of Hants.
  Newspaper clipping pasted in:  “Extract of a Letter from a Gentleman in a village fifty miles S.W. of London, dated Oct. 21.  “From the fineness of the weather, and the steadiness of the wind to the N.E. I began to be possessed with a notion last Friday that we should see Mr Blanchard the day following, and therefore I called upon many of my neighbours in the street, and told them my suspicions.  The next day proving also bright and the wind continuing as before, I became more sanguine than ever; and issuing forth, exhorted all those who had any curiosity to look sharp from about one to three o’clock as they would stand a good chance of being entertained with a very extraordinary sight.  That day I was not content to call at the houses, but I went out to the plow-men and labourers in the fields, and advised them to keep an eye at times to the N. and N.E.  But about one o’clock there came up such a haze that I could not see the hill;  however, not long after the mist cleared away in some degree, and people began to mount the hill.  I was busy in and out till a quarter after two and observed a cloud of London smoke, hanging to the N. and N.N.E.  This appearance increased my expectation.  At twenty minutes before three there was a cry that the balloon was come.  We ran into the orchard, where we found twenty or thirty neighbours assembled, and from the green bank at the end of my house, saw a dark blue speck at a most prodigious height dropping as it were out of the sky, and hanging amidst the regions of the air, between the weather-cock of the Tower and the Maypole; and then over my chimney; and in ten minutes more behind the wallnut tree.  The machine looked mostly of a dark blue colour, but some times reflected the rays of the sun.  With a telescope I could discern the boat and the ropes that supported it.  To my eye the balloon appeared no bigger than a large tea-urn.  When we saw it first, it was north of Farnham over Farnham heath; and never came on this (east) side of Farnham road; but continued to pass on tthe N.W. side of Bentley, Froil, Alton, &c.  and so for Medstead, Lord Northington’s at the Grange, and to the right of Alresford and Winchester.  I was wonderfully struck with the phenomenon, and, like Milton’s “Belated Peasant,” felt my heart rebound with joy and fear at the same time.  After a while I surveyed […]
• 1783: October 16, 1783 – Rover find pheasants every day; but no partridges.  The air is full of gossamer.  There is fine grass in the meadows.  …”see, the fading, many-coloured woods,/Shade deepening over shade, the coutnry round,/Imbrown.” Thomson.
• 1782: October 16, 1782 – Gathered-in my apples.  Knobbed russetings, & nonpareils, a few.  Near four bushels of dearlings on the meadow-tree: fruit small.
• 1781: October 16, 1781 – The mill at Hawlkey cannot work one-tenth of the time for want of water.
• 1780: October 16, 1780 – Grapes improve in the morning.
• 1778: October 16, 1778 – The rooks carry-off the wallnuts, & acorns from the trees.  One house-martin appears: by it’s air & manner it seemed to be a young one: it scouted along as if pinched with the cold.
• 1776: October 16, 1776 – The redbreast’s note is very sweet, & pleasing; did it not carry with it ugly associations of ideas, & put us in mind of the approach of winter.
• 1774: October 16, 1774 – Great fog, white frost, bright.
• 1773: October 16, 1773 – Mr Yalden finished his barley-harvest, some of which had been cut more than six weeks. In general the grain is not spoiled, but by drying & frequent turning in a floor will be tolerable.

Hirundo rusticae in a nest in Viborg, Denmark.

• 1789: October 10, 1789 – Two hop-waggons return with loads of woollen rags, to be spread & dug in as manure for the hop-gardens.
• 1788: October 10, 1788 – Nailed-up a Greek, & an Italian inscription on the front of the alcove on ye hanger.  Boys took a large round wasps nest in the Ewel, nearly as large as a gallon measure.  Several martins round the church.  Many flies on the tower, which come out from the belfry to sun themselves.
• 1785: October 10, 1785 – Mr S. Barker left us.
• 1784: October 10, 1784 – A person took a trout in the stream at Dorton, weighing 2 pounds, & an half; a size to which they seldom arrive with us, because our brook is so perpetually harassed by poachers.
• 1783: October 10, 1783 – Full moon.  Sweet moonshine.
• 1782: October 10, 1782 – We make tarts, & puddings with the crude unripened grapes.  Gathered-in the Virgoleuse, & Chaumentelle pears, a good crop: somewhat has gnawn many of the former like wasps or hornets.
• 1781: October 10, 1781 – My well rises.  My hedges are beautifully tinged.  Wood-larks sing sweetly thro’ this soft weather.
• 1778: October 10, 1778 – My crop of apples is large; pears are but few; medlars in abundance wallnuts many, but not very good.  One apple-tree produced ten bushels.
• 1777: October 10, 1777 – Vast fog, sweet day.  Gossamer abounds.
• 1776: October 10, 1776 – Grey, windy, soft & agreeable.  Now my grapes are delicate notwithstanding the summer was so wet & shady.
• 1775: October 10, 1775 – Woodcock killed this day.
• 1774: October 10, 1774 – Dark morning, small showers, bright afternoon.
• 1773: October 10, 1773 – Storm that broke the boughs from the hedges.  Many swallows & martins.  Much barley & vetches abroad.  The housed & ricked barley in wet condition; it heats much.
• 1770: October 10, 1770 – Several very young nestling swallows with square tails.  Oestrus curvicauda still appears.  Apples gathering.  Grapes begin to be eatable.

Foot of a fly, Robert Hooke, Micrographia. Or Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made By Magnifying Glasses With Observations and Inquiries Thereupon, 1664

White’s theory of the adhesive mechanism of the feet of houseflies is ingenious but not quite accurate– in principle they work more like Velcro. Hooke’s drawing is miraculous but an even better look at the little hairs causing the grip can be seen here.

• 1792: October 9, 1792 – Master Hale houses barley that looks like old thatch.  Much barley about the country, & some wheat.  Some pheasants found in the manour.  The sound of great guns was heard distinctly this day to the S.E. probably from Goodwood, where the Duke of Richmond has a detachment from the train of artillery encamped in his park, that he may try experiments with some of the ordnance.
• 1791: October 9, 1791 – It has been observed that divers flies, besides their sharp, hooked nails, have also skinny palms or flaps to their feet, whereby they are enabled to stick on glass & other smooth bodies, & to walk on ceilings with their backs downward, by means of the pressure of the atmosphere on those flaps.  The weight of which they easily overcome in cold weather when they are brisk and alert.  But in the decline of the year, this resistance becomes too mighty for their diminished strength; & we see flies labouring along, & lugging their feet in windows as if they stuck fast to the glass, & it is with the utmost difficulty they can draw one foot after another, & disengage their hollow caps from the slippery surface.  Upon the same principle that flies stick, & support themselves, do boys, by way of play, carry heavy weights by only a piece of wet leather at the end of a string clapped close on the surface of a stone.  Tho’ the Virgoloeuse pears always rot before they ripen, & are eatble, yet when baked dry on  a tin, they become an excellent sweet-meat.
• 1788: October 9, 1789 – A bag of hops from master Hale, weight 36 pounds, & an half.
• 1788: October 9, 1788 – D.L. Virginian creeper sheds it’s leaves.  It’s leaves have a silky appearance.  Tho. H. White, & H.H.W. went to Fyfield.
• 1787: October 9, 1787 – Timothy sets his shell an edge against the sun.  The best Selborne hops were sold for 15 pounds, & 15 guineas per hund.
• 1784: October 9, 1784 – Mr R: left us.  It has been the received opinion that trees grow in height only by their annual upper shoot.  But my neighbour over the way, Tanner, whose occupation confines him to one spot, assures me, that trees are expanded & raised in the lower parts also.  The reason that he gives is this: the point of one of my Firs in Baker’s hill began for the first time to peep over an opposite roof at the beginning of summer; but before the growing season was over, the whole shoot of the year, & three or four joints of the body beside became visible to him as he sits on his form in his shop.  According to this supposition, a tree may advance in height considerably though the summer shoot should be destroyed every year.
• 1781: October 9, 1781 – The grass was covered with cob-webs, which being loaded with dew, looked like frost.  A grey hen was lately killed on that part of Hind-head which is called the Devil’s punch-bowl.  This solitary bird has haunted those parts for some time.
• 1778: October 9, 1778 – Many martins near Houghton-bridge.  Some swallows all the way.
• 1776: October 9, 1776 – Nuts fall very fast from the hedges.
• 1775: October 9, 1775 – Woodcock returns.
• 1774: October 9, 1774 – Three swallows at Faringdon.
• 1773: October 9, 1773 – Many martins appear again. Mr Yalden’s barley abroad: it has large corn & full of clover.  * The breed of partridges was good this year: pheasants are very scarce; hardly any eyes to be found.  We abound usually in pheasants.  In some counties pheasants are so scarce that the Gent. have agreed to refrain from killing any.  Rains ever since the first of Sepr.
• 1771: October 9, 1771 – Several swallows & martins.
• 1770: October 9, 1770 – Fog on the hills.

Hop plants.

• 1791: October 8, 1791 – Earthed up the celeri, which is very gross, & large.
• 1790: October 8, 1790 – “there the snake throws her enamel’d skin”
  About the middle of this month we found in a field near a hedge the slough of a large snake, which seemed to have  been newly cast.  From circumstances it appeared as if turned wrong side outward, & drawn off backward, like a stocking, or a woman’s glove.  Not only the whole skin, but the scales from the very eyes are peeled off, & appear in the head of the slough like a pair of spectacles.  The reptile, at the time of changing his coat, had intangled himself intricately in the grass & weeds, so that the friction of the stlaks & blades might promote this curious shifting of his exuviae.  “lubrica serpens/Exuit in spinis vestem.”   It would be a most entertaining sight could a person be an eye-witness to such a feat, & see the snake in the act of changing his garment.  As the convexity of the scales of the eyes in the slough are now inward, that circumstance alone is a proof that the skin has been  turned: not to mention that now the present inside is much darker, than the outer.  If you look through the scales of the snake’s eyes from the concave side, viz: as the reptile used them, they lessen objects much.  Thus it appears from what has been said that snakes crawl out of the mouth of their own sloughs, & quit the tail part last; just as eels are skinned by a cook maid.  While the scales of the eyes are growing loose, & a new skin is forming, the creature, in appearance, must be blind, & feel itself in an awkward uneasy situation.
• 1788: October 9, 1788 – Bought of bright hops– 21 pounds; of brown– 49.
• 1787: October 8, 1787 – One waggon carries this year all the Selborne hops to Weyhill: last year there were many loads.  Jack Burbey’s brown owl washes often when a pan of water is set in its way.  Woodcock killed at Bramshot.
• 1785: October 8, 1785 – Brother Henry, Bet, & Charles left us.  Finished turning the mould in the mead.  Received from Mr. Edd Woods 5 gallons, & 1 pint of French brandy.
• 1784: October 8, 1784 – Mr Richardson came.
• 1783: October 8, 1783 – Neps. Th: H. & Hen. H. White went to Fyfield.
• 1782: October 8, 1782 – Sad weather for the barley.  Barley housed at Bramshot & other places, being green & damp, has heated violently, & endangered the firing of barns.  All the hops of this parish this year are carried to Wey-hill in two waggons: good crops require four or five.  Gathered two or three bunches of grapes: they have some colour, but are crude & sour.– By the evening being so light, there must be great N. Auroras.  Mr. Yalden finished mowing his barley.
• 1781: October 8, 1781 – Several women & children have eruptions on their hands, &c., is this owing to the lowness of the water in the wells, &c?  It seems this often befalls after they have been employed in hop-picking.
• 1778: October 8, 1778 – Not one wheatear to be seen on all the downs.  Swallows abound between Brighthelmstone & Beeding.  Not on ring-ouzel to be seen on the downs either coming or  going.
• 1777: October 8, 1777 – Fine autumnal weather.  Mr Richardon’s nectarines & peaches still in perfection.
• 1773: October 8, 1773 – Rooks frequent wallnut trees, & carry off the fruit.

Brickmakers, by Thomas Bewick or his school.

• 1792: October 7, 1792 – The crop of stoneless berberries is prodigious!  Among the many sorts of people that are injured by this very wet summer, the peat-cutters are great sufferers:  for they have not disposed of half the peat & turf which they ave prepared; & the poor have lost their season for laying in their forest fuel.  The brick-burner can get no dry heath to burn his lime, & bricks: nor can I house my cleft wood, which lies drenched in wet.  The brick-burner could never get his last makings of tiles & bricks dry enough for burning the autumn thro’ so they must be destroyed, & worked up again.  He had paid duty for them; but is, I understand, to be reimbursed.
• 1791: October 7, 1791 – Gathered-in the Chaumontel, swans-egg, & Virgoleuse pears: the latter rot before they ripen.  Gathered also the kitchen apples at the end of the fruit-wall, & the knobbed russetings: of both there is a great crop.  Gathered the Cadillac pears, a small crop.
• 1790: October 7, 1790 – Timothy the tortoise came out into the walk, & grazed. Mr Edmd White, while he was at South Lambeth, this summer, kept for a time a regular journal of his Father’s barometer, which, when compared with a journal of my own for the same space, proves that the Mercury at S. Lambeth at an average stands full three tenths of an inch higher than at Selborne. Now as we have remarked that the barometer at Newton Valence is invariably three tneth lower than my own at Selborne, it plainly appears that the mercury at S. Lambeth exceeds in height at an average the mercury at Newton by six tenths at least. Hence it follows, according to some calculations, that Nweton vicarge house is 600 feet higher than the hamlet of S. Lambeth, which, as may be seen by the tide coming-up the creek before some of the houses, stands but a few feet above high water mark. It is much to be wished that all persons who attend to barometers would take care to use none but pure distilled Mercury in their tubes: because Mercury adulterated with lead, as it often is, loses much of it’s true gravity, & must often stand in tubes above it’s proper pitch on account of the diminution of it’s specific weight by lead, which is lighter than mercury. The remarks above show the futility of marking the plates of barometers with the words– fair, changeable, &c, instead of inches, & tenths; since by means of different elevations they are very poor directions, & have but little reference to the weather. After the servants have gone to bed, the kitchen-hearth swarms with young crickets, Blattae molendinariae, of all sized from the most minuted growth to their full proportions. They seem to live in a friendly manner together, & not prey the one on the other.
• 1789: October 7, 1789 – Many loads of hops set-out for wey hill.
• 1788: October 7, 1788 – Many gulls, & wildfowls on Wolmer pond.  Whitings brought.
• 1787: October 7, 1787 – My tall, streight Beech at the E. corner of Sparrow’s hanger, from a measurement taken by Rich. Becher & son, proves to be exactly 74 feet & 1/2 in in height.  The shaft is about 50 feet without a bough.
• 1786: October 7, 1786 – The great rains do not influence our wells in the least.  Niece Betsey returned to Fyfield.  On this day Miss Mary Haggitt of Rushton, Northamptonshire, by being married to my Nephew Sam Barker, encreased the number of my nephews & nieces to 47.
• 1776: October 7, 1776 – Gathered some keeping-apples.  The intercourse between tups and ewes seems pretty well over.  Ewes go, I think, 22 weeks.
• 1773: October 7, 1773 – Wasps cease to appear. Swallows & martins seem to be gone.

Notes:
This blog does not adequately convey the importance of barometers to Gilbert White (re, the 1790 entry)– I generally omit his daily barometric readings. Here’s some pictures of period baromters. Also of interest: how to set your mercury barometer.