The Natural History of Selborne

The painting mentioned in the 1790 entry was reproduced in a posthumous collection of White’s journals published by his brothers in 1795. This is scanned from my own copy;click on the image to see it larger.

• 1792: October 2, 1792 – Flying ants, male & female, usually swarm, & migrate on hot sunny days in August & Septembr; but this day a vast emigration took place in my garden & myriads came forth in appearance, from the drain which goes under the fruit-wall; filling the air & adjoining trees & shrubs with their numbers.  The females were full of eggs.  This late swarming is probably owing to the backward, wet season.  The day following, not one flying ant was to be seen.  The males, it is supposed all perish: the females wander away; & such as escape the Hirundines get into the grass, & under stones, & tiles, & lay the foundation of future colonies.
• 1791: October 2, 1791 – Gathered one fine nectarine, the last.  My double-bearing raspberries produce a good crop.  Grapes very fine, endive good.
• 1790: October 2, 1790 – Bro. Thomas, & his daughter Mrs Ben White left us, & went to London.  Lord Stawell sent me from the great Lodge in the Holt a curious bird for my inspection.  It was found by the spaniels of one of the keepers in a coppice, & shot on the wing.  The shape, & air, & habit of the bird, & the scarlet ring round the eyes, agreed well with the appearance of a cock pheasant; but then the head & neck, & breast & belly, were of a glossy black: & tho’ it weighed 3 ae 3 1/2 oun., the weight of a large full-grown cock pheasant, yet there were no signs of any spurs on the legs, as is usual with all grown cock pheasants, who have long ones.  the legs & feet were naked of feathers; & therefore it could be nothing of the Grous kind.  In the tail were no long bending feathers, such as cock pheasants usually have, & are characteristic of the sex.  The tail was much shorter than the tail of an hen pheasant, & blunt & square at the end.  The back, wing-feathers, & tail, were all of a pale russet, curiously streaked, somewhat like the upper parts of an hen partridge.  I returned it to the noble sender with my verdict, that it was probably a spurious or hen bird, bred between a cock pheasant and some demestic fowl.  When I came to talk with the keeper who brought it, he told me, that some Pea-hens had been known last summer to haunt the coppices & coverts where this mule was found.  *Hen pheasants usually weigh only 2 ae 1 oun. My advice was that his Lordship would employ Elmer of Farnham, the famous game-painter, to take an exact copy of this curious bird.  — His Lordship did employ Elmer, & sent me as a present a good painting of that rare bird.
• 1788: October 2, 1788 – Gathered six bush. & half of dearlings from the meadow-tree: four or five bush. remain on the tree.  The foliage of the Virginian creeper of a fine blood-colour.
• 1783: October 2, 1783 – Erected an alcove in the middle of the bostal.  Charles Henry White, & his sister Bessey returned to Fyfield.
• 1780: October 2, 1780 – Cleaned-out the zigzag.  The spinage sown in Aug. now in perfection.
• 1778: October 2, 1778 – Timothy, the old tortoise, weighed six pounds, & eleven ounces averdupoise.
• 1775: October 2, 1775 – The barometer falls with great precipitation.
• 1773: October 2, 1773 – Swallows do not resort to chimnies for some time before they retire.  Titlarks abound on the common.  Martins are the shortest-winged & least agile of all the swallow-tribe.  They take their prey in a middle region, not so high as the swifts: nor do they usually sweep the ground so low as the swallows.  Breed the latest of all the swallow genus: last year they had young nestlings on to the 21 of Octr.  They usually stay later than their congeners.  Lat year 20 or 30 were playing all day long by the side of the hanger, & over my fields on Novr. 3rd.  After that they were seen no more.
• 1771: October 2, 1771 – Woodlark whistles.  Few swallows.  One martin’s nest with young in it.  Some few martins about.
• 1770: October 2, 1770 – Ring-ouzel on Harting Hills.
• 1768: October 2, 1768 – Swallows still.  Glow-worms shine.