The Natural History of Selborne

• 1792: October 6, 1792 – Many Hirundines: several very young swallows on the thatch of the cottage near the pound.  The evening is uncommonly dark.
• 1791: October 6, 1791 – Received a bag of hops from Mr. Hale, weight 61 pounds.
• 1789: October 6, 1789 – Grapes do not ripen: they are as backward as in the bad summer of 1782: the crop is large.
• 1788: October 6, 1788 – Gathered-in some royal russets, very fine.
• 1787: October 6, 1787 – My well is very low; & the stream from Gracious street almost dry.
• 1785: October 6, 1785 – Gathered-in the swans-egg pears, a bushel; more to be gathered.
• 1784: October 7, 1784 – Mr Harry White, & Lucy left us.
• 1784: October 6, 1784 – A vast flock of ravens over the hanger: more than sixty!
• 1782: October 6, 1782 – Wood-cock returns, & is seen in the Hanger.  Young martins in the nest at little World-ham; probably Ward-le-ham.
• 1781: October 6, 1781 – Several herons at Wolmer-pond, & a tringa octrophus, or white-rumped sand-piper, Cranmer-pond in Wolmer-forest is quite dry.
• 1776: October 6, 1776 – Numbers of swallows & martins playing about at Faringdon, & settling on the trees.  If hirundines hide in rocks & caverns, how do they, while torpid, avoid being eaten by weasels & other vermin?
• 1775: October 6, 1775 – Just before it was dark a flight of about 12 swallows darted along over my House towards the hill: they seemed as if they settled in the hanger.  Now several house-martins appear about the hanger.
  * An oak in Newton-lane near the Cross, by the condensation of the fogs on it’s leaves  has dripped such quantities for some nights past, that the water stands in puddles, & runs down the ruts.  Why this tree should drip so much more than it’s neighbours is not easy to say.  No doubt this is one of the means by which small upland ponds are still supported with water in the longest droughts; & the reason why they are never dry.  What methods of supply upland ponds enjoy, where no trees over-hang, may not be so easy to determine.  Perhaps their cool surfaces may attract a fund from the air when it is loaded with fogs & vapors, especially in the night-time.  That they have some never-failing stock at hand to counterbalance evaporation & the waste by cattle, is notorious to the meanest observer.  For on the chalks no springs are ever seen on the tops or sides of hills, but in the bottoms alone.
• 1770: October 6, 1770 – Harvest not finished.  Not one wasp or hornet.

• 1791: October 5, 1791 – Arrived off the isle of Wight the Earl Fitzwilliams Captn Dundas from Madras.  Charles Etty sailed in this India man as second mate about the 10th of March, 1790.  [later note]  Poor Charles Etty did not come home in the Earl Fitzwilliams, having unfortunately broke his leg at Madras the evening before the ship sailed for Europe.
• 1790: October 5, 1790 – Cut 3 bunches of grapes: they were just eatable.
• 1789: October 5, 1789 – Gathered in Chaumontel pears: tied endive.  Mr Ben, & Mrs Ben White left us.
• 1787: October 5, 1787 – Bror Ben & wife came. Put my fine hyacinths into a bed, that were taken-up in the summer. Put also some good tulips, & striped crocus’s from Bro: Thos’s garden into beds.
• 1783: October 5, 1783 – In the High-wood, under the thick trees, & among the dead leaves, where there was no grass, we found a large circle of Fungi of the Agaric kind, which included many beeches within its ring.  Such circles are often seen on  turf, but not usually in covert.  We found a species of Agaric in the high wood of a very grotesque shape, with the laminae turned outward, & the cap within formed into a funnel containing a good quantity of water.
• 1781: October 5, 1781 – No h: martins, nor swallows in the villages, nor sand-martins at the pit on Short-heath.  The white-sand in the pit above, observed thro’ a microscope, appears more sharp, & angular than the yellow sand of the forest.  Gathered in the nonparels, & royal russets.  Much gossamer flying.
• 1778: October 5, 1778 – Whitings in season still.  Many martins, & some swallows hover about the cliffs near Lewes.
• 1776: October 5, 1776 – Black snails are more sluggish than in the summer; but in sight all day at this season of the year.  Saw one hornet.
• 1775: October 5, 1775 – Here & there a straggling swallow.  Curlews clamor.
• 1774: October 5, 1774 – Mr Yalden houses barley.  No hirundines appear all this day, though the weather is so fine, & the air full of insects.
• 1771: October 5, 1771 – White frost, grey, & clouds.  Ashen leaves begin to fall.
• 1770: October 5, 1770 – Crossbills, loxiae curvirostrae among Mrs Snooke’s Scotch pines.
• 1768: October 5, 1768 – Rooks carry off ye nuts from ye wall-nut trees.

• 1790: October 4, 1790 – Three martin’s nests at Mr Burbey’s are now full of young!
• 1789: October 4, 1789 – The breed of hares is great: last year there were few.  Some have remarked that hared abound most in wet summers.
• 1788: October 4, 1788 – Fyfield, the spaniel, rejects the bones of a wood-cock with horror.  Gathered in the non-pareils.  The prodigious crop of apples this year verified in some measure the words of Virgil made use of in the description of the Corycian garden;
  “Quotq’ in flore novo pomis se fertilis arbos/Induerat, totidem in autumno matura tenebat.”
• 1786: October 4, 1786 – On this day an woodcock was seen in a coppice at Froyle.  Gathered-in the Royal-russets, & knobbed russets; the former are fine shewy apples.  There is a good crop of each sort.
• 1785: October 4, 1785 – Bror. Henry comes.
• 1783: October 4, 1783 – This day has been at Selborne the honey market: for a person from Chert came over with a cart, to whom all the villagers round about brought their hives, & sold their contents.  This year has proved a good one to the upland bee-gardens, but not to those near the forest.  Combs were sold last year at about 3 3/4d per pound; this year from 3 1/2-4d.  Women pick up acorns, & sell them for 1s pr bushel.  A splendid meteor seen at half hour past six in the evening; but not so large as that on the 18th of August.
• 1782: October 4, 1782 – Numbers of pheasants at Inne down-coppice.
• 1781: October 4, 1781 – No h. martins, nor swallows in the village, nor sand-martins about the forest.  Ld Stawel was fishing Wolmer-pond with a long net drawn by ten men.
• 1779: October 4, 1779 – Mushrooms abound.  Made catchup.
• 1775: October 4, 1775 – One swallow.  What can this bird be doing behind by itself?  Why might they not have all staid, since this individual seems brisk, & vigorous.
• 1773: October 4, 1773 – Vetches & pease are mostly spoiled.  Martins.  Mr Yalden has 10 acres of barley abroad.
• 1770: October 4, 1770 – Ring-ouzels near Ringmer.  Swallows abound.
• 1768: October 4, 1768 – Grapes are good.  The ash and mulberry cast their leaves.

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Venator: My friend Piscator, you have kept time with my thoughts; for the sun is just rising, and I myself just now come to this place, and the dogs have just now put down an Otter. Look ! down at the bottom of the
hill there, in that meadow, chequered with water-lilies and lady-smocks; there you may see what work they make; look! look! you may see all busy; men and dogs; dogs and men; all busy.–Izaak Walton, The Compleat Angler, 1653

Engraving by Thomas Bewick (the otter is in the lower right corner; click on the image for a larger version.) Otters, like nearly all predators competitive with man, were mercilessly hunted. An excellent if depressing book on the destruction of wildlife in this era, so in evidence in White’s journals, is Silent Fields, by the aptly named Roger Lovegrove.

• 1792: October 3, 1792 – Hirundines swarm around the Plestor, & up & down the street.
• 1790: October 3, 1790 – The row of ten weeks stocks under the fruit-wall makes a beautiful show.
• 1789: October 3, 1789 – Gathered in burgamot, & Creson burgamot pears.  Gathered some grapes, but they are not good.  B. Th. White sowed two pounds of furze-seed from Ireland on the naked part of the hanger.  The furze-seed sown by him on the same space in May last is come-up well.
• 1787: October 3, 1787 – Men sow wheat; but wish for more rain to moisten their fallows.  The quantity of potatoes planted in this parish was very great, & the produce, on ground unused to that root, prodigious.  David Long had two hundred bushels on half an acre.  Red or hog potatoes are sold for six pence pr bushel.  Mr Churton left us & went to Waverley: Nep. Tom & Harry left us, & went to Fyfield.
• 1786: October 3, 1786 – Gathered-in the apples called dearlings, which keep well, & are valuable kitchen apples.  My only tree of the sort stands in the meadow, & produced ten bushels of fruit.  Apples this year have sold at 8s per bushel: so had the price continued the produce would be worth four pounds.  Next year probably there will be no crop; because I do not remember to have seen this tree bear two years following.
• 1784: October 3, 1784 – Two young men killed a large male otter, weighing 21 pounds, on the bank of our rivulte, below Priory longmead, on the Hartely-wood side, where the two parishes are divided by the stream.  This is the first of the kind ever remembered to have been found in this parish.
• 1783: October 3, 1783 – The hanger is beatifully tinged.  Leaves fall apace.  Dug up carrots.  Many flesh-flies: here & there a wasp.  The cat frolicks, & plays with the falling leaves.
• 1782: October 3, 1782 – Rain 78 in my garden, on the tower 59.
• 1781: October 3, 1781 – Bought a bay-Welch Galloway mare. Out of the horses that were offered to me to try, there were ten mares to one gelding.
• 1780: October 3, 1780 – No ring-ouzels seen this autumn yet.  Timothy very dull.
• 1779: October 3, 1779 – Began lighting fires in the parlor.
• 1778: October 3, 1778 – White low fogs over the brooks.
• 1777: October 3, 1777 – What becomes of those massy clouds that often incumber the atmosphere in the day, & yet disappear in the evening.  Do they melt down into dew?  * Some of the store wethers on this down now prove fat, & weigh 15 pounds a quarter.  This incident never befals but in long dry seasons; & then the mutton has a delicate flavour.
• 1776: October 3, 1776 – Beautiful wheat season for the wet fallows.  The buzzard is a dastardly bird, & beaten not only by the raven, but even by the carrion-crow.  Gathered baking-pears.
• 1774: October 3, 1774 – Gathered in the more choice pears, Autumn burgamots, chaumontels, &c.; a good crop.
• 1773: October 3, 1773 – Grey, dark showers, dry & windy.  Glass falls at a vast rate.
• 1771: October 3, 1771 – Grapes turn black.  Vetches, & seed-clover housed.  Baromr sinks very fast.  Ring-ouzels.  Ring-ouzels affect to perch on the top twigs of tall trees, like field-fares.  When they flie off they chatter like black birds.  Apples are gathering.
• 1770: October 3, 1770 – Ring-ouzels again on the downs eastward.

The painting mentioned in the 1790 entry was reproduced in a posthumous collection of White’s journals published by his brothers in 1795. This is scanned from my own copy;click on the image to see it larger.

• 1792: October 2, 1792 – Flying ants, male & female, usually swarm, & migrate on hot sunny days in August & Septembr; but this day a vast emigration took place in my garden & myriads came forth in appearance, from the drain which goes under the fruit-wall; filling the air & adjoining trees & shrubs with their numbers.  The females were full of eggs.  This late swarming is probably owing to the backward, wet season.  The day following, not one flying ant was to be seen.  The males, it is supposed all perish: the females wander away; & such as escape the Hirundines get into the grass, & under stones, & tiles, & lay the foundation of future colonies.
• 1791: October 2, 1791 – Gathered one fine nectarine, the last.  My double-bearing raspberries produce a good crop.  Grapes very fine, endive good.
• 1790: October 2, 1790 – Bro. Thomas, & his daughter Mrs Ben White left us, & went to London.  Lord Stawell sent me from the great Lodge in the Holt a curious bird for my inspection.  It was found by the spaniels of one of the keepers in a coppice, & shot on the wing.  The shape, & air, & habit of the bird, & the scarlet ring round the eyes, agreed well with the appearance of a cock pheasant; but then the head & neck, & breast & belly, were of a glossy black: & tho’ it weighed 3 ae 3 1/2 oun., the weight of a large full-grown cock pheasant, yet there were no signs of any spurs on the legs, as is usual with all grown cock pheasants, who have long ones.  the legs & feet were naked of feathers; & therefore it could be nothing of the Grous kind.  In the tail were no long bending feathers, such as cock pheasants usually have, & are characteristic of the sex.  The tail was much shorter than the tail of an hen pheasant, & blunt & square at the end.  The back, wing-feathers, & tail, were all of a pale russet, curiously streaked, somewhat like the upper parts of an hen partridge.  I returned it to the noble sender with my verdict, that it was probably a spurious or hen bird, bred between a cock pheasant and some demestic fowl.  When I came to talk with the keeper who brought it, he told me, that some Pea-hens had been known last summer to haunt the coppices & coverts where this mule was found.  *Hen pheasants usually weigh only 2 ae 1 oun. My advice was that his Lordship would employ Elmer of Farnham, the famous game-painter, to take an exact copy of this curious bird.  — His Lordship did employ Elmer, & sent me as a present a good painting of that rare bird.
• 1788: October 2, 1788 – Gathered six bush. & half of dearlings from the meadow-tree: four or five bush. remain on the tree.  The foliage of the Virginian creeper of a fine blood-colour.
• 1783: October 2, 1783 – Erected an alcove in the middle of the bostal.  Charles Henry White, & his sister Bessey returned to Fyfield.
• 1780: October 2, 1780 – Cleaned-out the zigzag.  The spinage sown in Aug. now in perfection.
• 1778: October 2, 1778 – Timothy, the old tortoise, weighed six pounds, & eleven ounces averdupoise.
• 1775: October 2, 1775 – The barometer falls with great precipitation.
• 1773: October 2, 1773 – Swallows do not resort to chimnies for some time before they retire.  Titlarks abound on the common.  Martins are the shortest-winged & least agile of all the swallow-tribe.  They take their prey in a middle region, not so high as the swifts: nor do they usually sweep the ground so low as the swallows.  Breed the latest of all the swallow genus: last year they had young nestlings on to the 21 of Octr.  They usually stay later than their congeners.  Lat year 20 or 30 were playing all day long by the side of the hanger, & over my fields on Novr. 3rd.  After that they were seen no more.
• 1771: October 2, 1771 – Woodlark whistles.  Few swallows.  One martin’s nest with young in it.  Some few martins about.
• 1770: October 2, 1770 – Ring-ouzel on Harting Hills.
• 1768: October 2, 1768 – Swallows still.  Glow-worms shine.

Woodcock, Thomas Bewick’s History of British Birds, 1797

• 1792: October 1, 1792 – Wheat out at Buriton, Froxfield, Ropely, & other places.
• 1791: October 1, 1791 – Nep. B. White left us, & went to London.  It was with difficulty that we procured water enough for  brewing from my well.
• 1788: October 1, 1788 – H.H. White came from Fyfield.
• 1787: October 1, 1787 – Wheat not so good as last year: 50 sheaves do not yield more than forty did this time twelvemonth.
• 1786: October 1, 1786 – About Octobr 1, the weather was cold & wet at Vevey, in Switzerland; when the Hirundines flew so near the ground as to be a prey to cats, which watched for them; & some entered mens windows so tame & hungry as to sit on a finger, & take flies when offered to them, or which they saw on the glass or walls.
• 1784: October 1, 1784 – Gathered-in the Swan’s egg, autumn-burgamot, Cresan-burgamot, Chautmontelle, & Virgoleuse pears: a great crop.  The Swan-eggs are a vast crop. A wood-cock was killed in Blackmoor-woods; an other was seen the same evening in Hartley-wood.
• 1781: October 1, 1781 – Cleaned my well by drawing out about 100 buckets of muddy water: there was little rubbish at the bottom.  There were two good springs, one at the bottom, & one about three feet above.  Nothing had been done to this well for about 40 years.  The man at the bottom in the cleaning brought up several marbles & taws that we had thrown down when children.
• 1777: October 1, 1777 – Bright stars.  This day, Mr Richardson of Bramshot shot a wood-cock: it was large & plump & a female: it lay in a moorish piece of ground.  This bird was sent to London, where as the porter carryed it along the streets he was offered a guinea for it.
• 1776: October 1, 1776 – Swallows & martins, before they withdraw, not only forsake houses, but do not frequent the villages at all: so that their intercourse with houses is only for the sake of breeding.
• 1772: October 1, 1772 – Young martins in their nest at Lassam.
• 1768: October 1, 1768 – Harvest pretty well finished this evening.  Some wheat out at Harting.  Roads are much dryed.