The Natural History of Selborne

Stages of the field cricket, from Insects, Their Ways and Means of Living (1930), R.E. Snodgrass.

• 1793: April 24, 1793 – When Thomas got up to brew at four o’ the clock, he heard some stone-curlews pass by over the house in their way to the uplands.  In the evening they flie over the village downwards, towards the brook, & meadows, where they seem to spend the night.
• 1790: April 24, 1790 – Planted potatoes & beans in the meadow-garden.  Much thunder & hail at Alton.
• 1788: April 24, 1788 – Grass-hopper lark whispers.  Cowslips blow.
• 1787: April 24, 1787 – Nep. Ben White left us.
• 1784: April 24, 1784 – Planted ten rows of potatoes against the Wid: Dewye’s garden.  Planted one in the best garden. John Carpenter buys now & then of Mr Powlett of Rotherfield a chest-nut tree or two of the edible kind: they are large, & tall, & contain 60 or 70 feet of timber each.  The wood & bark of these trees resemble the oak; but the wood is softer & the grain more open.  The use that the buyer turns them to is cooperage; because he says the wood is light for buckets, jets &c. & will not shrink.  The grand objection to these trees is their disposition to be shaky; & what is much worse, cup-shaky: viz: the substance of these trees parts like the scales of an onion, & comes out in round plugs from the heart.  This, I know, was also the case with those fine chest-nut-trees that were lately cut at Bramshot-place against Portsmouth road.  Now as the soil at Rotherfield is chalk, & at Bramshot, sand; it seems as if this disposition to be shaky was not owing to soil alone, but the nature of that tree.  There are two groves of chest-nuts in Rotherfield-park, which are tall, & old, & have rather over-stood their prime.  J: Carpenter gives only 8d a foot for this timber, on account of the defect above-mentioned.
• 1779: April 24, 1779 – Hail, stormy, strong wind. The wind broke-off the great elm in the churchyard short in two: the head of which injured the yew-tree. The garden is much damaged by the wind. Many tulips & other flowers are injured by the hail. The lighting on friday morning shivered the masts of the Terrible man of war in Portsmouth harbour. The field-crickets in the short Lithe have cast their skins, are much encreased in bulk, show their wings, being now arrived in *maturity*. ‘Til this alteration they are in their pupa-state, but are alert, & eat; yet cannot chirp, nor propagate their kind.
• 1777: April 24, 1777 – The cock green-finch begins to toy, & hang about on the wing in a very peculiar manner.  These gestures proceed from amorous propensities.
• 1776: April 24, 1776 – Hot-beds never do so well in long dry fits of weather:  they do not ferment enough.  The hot dry weather hurries the flowers out of bloom.
• 1774: April 24, 1774 – No house-martins appear: they are very backward in coming.  One swift seen.
• 1772: April 24, 1772 – Martins appear but do not frequent houses.  Black cap whistles.  Showers about.  Swift returns.  Planted potatoes, four rows. Sowed box of polyanth-seed from London.  Sowed annuals.
• 1771: April 24, 1771 – Stone-curlew returns & clamours.

Notes:
The word ‘maturity’ in the 1779 entry was written in Greek. ‘Thomas’ is Thomas Hoar, White’s manservant, who often kept the weather records when he was away.