October 27
Posted by sydney on Oct 27th, 2008
- 1792: October 27, 1792 – Some few grapes just eatable: a large crop. Housed all the billet wood. Leaves fall in showers. A curlew is heard loudly whistling on the hill towards the Wadden. On this day Mrs S. Barker was brought to bed of a boy, who advances my nepotes to the round & compleat number of 60.
- 1791: October 27, 1791 – Young martins, & their dams again. Wood-cock on the down. Bro Ben, & wife, & Hannah left us, & went to Newton.
- 1790: October 27, 1790 – Grapes better.
- 1789: October 27, 1789 – Planted out many young laurustines, & Portugal laurels from the old stools.
- 1788: October 27, 1788 – Set up again my stone dial, blown down many years ago, on a thick Portland-slap in the angle of the terrass. The column is very old, came from Sarson house near Amport, & was hewn from the quarries of Chilmarke. The dial was regulated by my meridian line.
- 1785: October 27, 1785 – Water in the well very deep.
- 1784: October 27, 1784 – Dug, trenched, & earthed the asparagus-beds, & filled the trenches with leaves, flower-stalks, etc.
- 1782: October 27, 1782 – Two of my brother Henry’s gold-fish have been sick, & cannot live with the rest in the glass-bowl but in a tin-bucket by themselves they soon become lively, & vigorous. They were perhaps too much crouded in the bowl. When a fish sickens it’s head gets lowest; so that by degrees it stands as it were ont it’s head; ’till getting weaker & losing all poise, the tail turns over; & at last it floats on the water with it’s belly uppermost. Gold & silver-fishes seem to want no aliment, but what they can collect from pure water frequently changed. They will eat crumbs, but do better without; because the water is soon corrupted by the pieced of bread, & turns sour. Tho’ they seem to take nothing, yet the consequences of eating frequently drop from them: so that they must find many animalcula, & other nourishment. With their pinnae pectorales they gently protrude themselves forward or backward: but it is with their strong muscular tails only that Fishes move with such inconceivable rapidity.
It has been said that the eyes of fishes are immoveable: but these apparently turn them forward or backward in their sockets as their occasions require. They take little notice of a lighted candle, though applied close to their heads, but flounce and seem much frightened by a sudden stroke of the hand against the support whereon the bowl is hung; especially when they have been motionless, and are perhaps asleep. As fishes have no eyelids, it is not easy to discern when they are sleeping or not, because their eyes are always open.
Nothing can be more amusing than a glass bowl containing such
fishes: the double refractions of the glass and water represent them, when moving, in a shifting and changeable variety of dimensions, shades, and colours; while the two mediums, assisted by the concavo-convex shape of the vessel, magnify and distort them vastly; not to mention that the introduction of another element and its inhabitants into our parlours engages the fancy in a very agreeable manner. - 1781: October 27, 1781 – My well sinks and is very low. The tortoise begins to dig into the ground. Mr Yalden fetches water from Well-head. The bat is out this warm evening.
- 1776: October 27, 1776 – Larks frolick much in the air: when they are in that mood the larkers catch them in nets by means of a twinkling glass: this method they call daring.
- 1773: October 27, 1773 – Hares abound, but pheasants are very scarce this year. One of the vines to the S.W. casts its leaves & looks sickly.
- 1772: October 27, 1772 – Grapes decay with rain: are most highly ripened.
- 1770: Octber 27, 1770 – Ice. Cobwebs float in the air & cover the ground.
- 1769: October 27, 1769 – The weather has been dry just a month this day, one wet day excepted. The fields are so dry that farmers decline sowing. The lapwing, vanellus, congregates in great flocks on the downs, & uplands.
- 1768: October 27, 1768 – People are now housing corn after 27 days interruption.
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