The Natural History of Selborne

• 1790: January 3, 1790 – The spotted Bantam lays a second time.
• 1789: January 3, 1789 – Rime hangs on the trees all day.  Turner’s well-diggers have sunk his well about six feet.  It is now about on a level with mine, viz. about 63 feet deep.  They came to-day to a hard blue rag, & a little water.
• 1788: January 3, 1788 – A flood at Gracious street.
• 1787: January 3, 1787 – On this evening there was a total eclipse of the moon: but the sky was so cloudy, that we saw nothing of the progress of it.
• 1786: January 3, 1786 – Fierce frost.  On this day at 8 o’the clock in the evening Captain Lindsey’s hands were frozen, as he & Mr Powlett were returning from Captain Dumeresque’s to Rotherfield.  The Gent. suffered great pain all night, & found his nails turned black in the morning.  When he got to Rotherfield, he bathed his hands in cold water.  Snow on the ground six inches deep at an average.
• 1785: January 3, 1785 – Began the new rick: the hay is very fine.  Tho’ my ever-greens are almost destroyed Mr Yalden’s bays, & laurels, & laurustines seem untouched.  Berberries, & haws frozen on the trees. No birds eat the former.
• 1784: January 3, 1784 – Snow gone: flood at Gracious street.
• 1782: January 3, 1782 – Mezereon blows.  Viola tricolor, red lamium, & grounsel blow.  Hazel catkins open.
• 1781: January 3, 1781 – Some snow on the ground.  Vast halo round the moon.
• 1779: January 4, 1779 – Water frozen on my chamber-window.
• 1774: January 3, 1774 – Thermomr abroad 22 3/4.  At noon 30.  In ye wine vault 43 1/4.
• 1771: January 3, 1771 – Wood-lice, onisci aselli, appear all the winter in mild weather: spiders appear all the winter in moist weather; lepismae appear all the winter round hearths & in warm places.  Some kinds of gnats appear all the winter in mild weather, as do earth-worms, after it is dark, when there is no frost.
• 1768: January 3, 1768 – Horses are still falling with their general disorder.  It freezes under people’s beds.

Notes:

‘Lepsimae’ in the 1771 entry are silverfish. The ‘blue rag’ in the 1789 entry refers to a layer of blue limestone; as described in the NHoS: “Though the white stone will not bear wet, yet in every quarry at intervals there are thin strata of blue rag, which resist rain and frost; and are excellent for pitching of stables, paths, and courts, and for building of dry walls against banks, a valuable species of fencing, much in use in this village, and for mending of roads.” NHoS, letter IV.