The Natural History of Selborne

Testudo graeca

• 1793: March 17, 1793 – On friday last my Brother & I walked up to Bentely church, which is more than a mile from his house & on a considerable elevation of ground.  From thence the prospect is good, & you see at a distance Cruxbury hill, Guild down, part of Lethe hill, Hind-head, & beyond it to the top of one of the Sussex downs.  There is an avenue of aged yew-trees up to the church: & the yard, which is large, abounds with brick-tombs covered with slabs of stone: of these there are ten in a row, belonging to the family of the Lutmans.  The church consists of three ailes, & has a squat tower containing six bells.  From the inscriptions it appears that the inhabitants live to considerable ages.  There are hob-grounds along on the north side of the turn-pike road, but none on the south towards the stream.  The whole district abounds with streams.  The largest spring on my brother’s farm issues out of the bank in the meadow, just below the terrace.  Some body formerly was pleased with this fountain, & has, at no small expence bestowed a facing of Portland stone with an arch, & a pipe, thro’ which the water falls into a stone bason, in a perennial stream.  By means of a wooden trough this spring waters some part of the cirucumjacent slopes.  It is not so copious as Well head.
• 1792: March 17, 1792 – Dog’s toothed violets bud. Lord Stawell made me a visit on this day, & brought me a white wood-cock it’s head, neck, belly, sides, were milk-white, as were the under sides of the wings.  On the back, & upper parts of the wings were a few spots of the natural colour.  From the shortness of the bill I should suppose it to be a male bird.  it was plump, & in good condition.
• 1791: March 17, 1791 – The Stone-curlew is returned again: & was heard this evening passing over the village frmo the uplands down to the meadows & brooks.  Planted 1/2 hundred cabbages.  Timothy comes out.
• 1790: March 17, 1790 – Timothy the tortoise lies very close in the hedge.
• 1789: March 17, 1789 – Icicles hang in eaves all day.  Snow melts in the sun.
• 1788: March 17, 1788 – Sowed the border opposite the rear parlor-windows with dwarf upright larkspurs; a fine sort.
• 1785: March 17, 1785 – Made the four-light beargin cucumber-b ed with five dung-carts, & 1/2 of dung.
• 1783: March 17, 1783 – Full moon.  Ice.  Nect. & peach blow.  Moon totally ecliped.
• 1780: Mrch 17, 1780 – Brought away Mrs Snooke’s old tortoise, Timothy, which she valued much, & had treated kindly for near 40 years.  When dug out of it’s hybernaculum, it resented the Insult by hissing.
• 1779: March 17, 1779 – Tussilago farfara.  Stellaria holostia.
• 1775: March 17, 1775 – Nuthatch brings out & cracks her nuts, & strews the garden-walks with shells.  They fix them in a fork of a tree where two boughs meet: on the Orleans plum tree.
• 1772: March 17, 1772 – Wild geese appear in a flock, flying to the Southward.

Notes:

A momentous day in Selborne: Timothy became a kind of Selborne mascot, and makes several appearances in “The Natural History of Selborne” itself. An extract from a letter by Gilbert to one of his nieces, in the person of Timothy complaining of the indignities to which she was put:

These matters displease me; but there is another that much hurts my pride: I mean that contempt shown for my understanding which these Lords of Creation are very apt to discover, thinking that nobody knows anything but themselves.

She (it was a she; Gilbert could have made use of this helpful page on sexing Testudo graeca) has penned a recent autobiography. The tortoise trust has a nice little biography as well. Her shell now resides in the British museum.