The Natural History of Selborne

• 1793: February 12, 1793 – Mrs. J. White returns.
• 1789: February 12, 1789 – About this time Miss Chase, & Miss Rebecca Chase sailed for Madras in the Nottingham India-man.
• 1781: February 12, 1781 – Sea-gulls appear: in stormy weather they leave the sea.
• 1780: February 12, 1780 – The farmers begin to plow after the frost.
• 1777: February 12, 1777 – About the beginning of July, a species of Fly (Musca) obtains, which proves very tormenting to horses, trying still to enter their nostrils, and ears, & actually laying their eggs in the latter & perhaps in both of those organs. When these abound, horses in wood-land districts become very impatient with their work, continually tossing their heads & rubbing their noses on each other, regardless of the driver: so that accidents often ensue. In the heat of the day, men are often obliged to deist from plowing: saddle-horses are also very troublesome in such season. Country-people call this insect the nose fly. In the decline of the year when the morning & evening become chilly, many species of flies (muscae) retire into houses, & swarm in the windows. At first they are very brisk & alert: but as they grow more torpid, one cannot help observing that that they move with difficulty, & are scarce able to lift their legs, which seem as if glued to the glass: and by degrees many do actually stick on till they die in the place. Now as flies have flat skinny palms, or soles to their feet, which enable them to walk on glass & other smooth bodies by means of the pressure of the atmosphere; may not this pressure the the means of their embarrassment as they grow more feeble; ’til at last their powers become quite inadequate to the weight of the incumbent air bearing hard upon their more languid feet; & so at last they stick to the walls & windows, where they remain, & are found dead.
• 1775: February 12, 1775 – Sad accounts from various parts of devastations by storms & inundations. A spoon-bill platalea leucorodia Linn: was shot near Yarmouth in Norfolk: it is pretty common in Holland, but very rare indeed in this island.  There were several in a flock.  They build Willughby says, like Herons in tall trees.  Their feet are semipalmated.  Those birds in Norfolk must have crossed the German ocean.
• 1770: February 12, 1770 – Yellow-hammer, emberiza flava, sings.  Bee gathers on the snow-drops.  Bunting sings.
• 1769: February 12, 1769 – Snow, fog, sleet.  Icicles.  Snow on the hills.

White will speculate again 14 years later on the flies-on-windows issue, but his vacuum theory is incorrect– insects use fine velcro-like hairs to stick to smooth surfaces.