The Natural History of Selborne

Lathraea squamaria, the toothwort, by Adlof Hansen(?), from Anton Kerner von Marilaun’s Pflanzenleben. A flowering parasite on tree roots, with no chlorophyll.

• 1791: May 23, 1791 – Brother Thomas White came.
• 1789: May 23, 1789 – White thorn blows.  The air is filled with floating willow-down.  Martins begin to build against the end of my brew-house.  Columbines blow.  N. Aurora.  Timothy the tortoise begins to travel about, & be restless.
• 1787: May 23, 1787 – A pair of red-backed Butcher-birds, lanius collurio, have got a nest in Bro: Tho: outlet.  They have built in a quickset-hedge.  We took one of the eggs out of the nest: it was white; but surrounded at the big end by a circle of brown spots, coronae instar.
• 1786: May 23, 1786 – Slipped-out the artichokes, & earthed them up.  Mrs Yalden left us.
• 1784: May 23, 1784 – Field-crickets cry, & shrill in the short Lythe.
• 1783: May 23, 1783 – Stocks blow, & are very double and handsome!
• 1776: May 23, 1776 – Female wasps abound.  Young rooks venture-out to the neighbouring trees.
• 1775: May 23, 1775 – Dutch-honeysuckles in high bloom.
• 1773: May 23, 1773 – Lathraea squammaria in seed.  Turtle-dove about.  Measles prevail in this neighbourhood.
• 1772: May 23, 1772 – Wryneck pipes.  The Ringmer-tortoise came forth from it’s hybernaculum on the 6th of April, but did not appear to eat ’til May the 5th it does not eat but on hot days.  As far as I could find it has no perceptible pulse.  The mole-cricket seems to chur all night.
• 1769: May 23, 1769 – Sultry.  Thunder at a distance.  Mole-cricket churs.  Not one chaffer appears yet.

Notes:
I think the 1772 entry might be the first mention of Timothy the tortoise– referred to as “the Ringmer tortoise” because Timothy was living with Gilbert’s aunt Mrs Snooke in the town of Ringmer until her death in 1780.