The Natural History of Selborne

Spring flowers in snow. London, April 6, 2008

• 1793: April 6, 1793 – On the 6th of last October I saw many swallows hawking for flies around the Plestor, & a row of young ones, with square tails, sitting on a spar of the old ragged thatch of the empty house.  This morning Dr Chandler & I cause the roof to be examined, hoping to have found some of these birds in their winter retreat: but we did not meet with any success, tho’ Benham searched every hole & every breach in the decayed roof.
• 1792: April 6, 1792 – Players left us.
• 1791: April 6, 1791 – The cuckoo arrives, & is seen, & heard.  The Apricots have no blossoms; they lost all their buds by the birds.  Red start returns, & appears on the grass plot.
• 1790: April 6, 1790 – Young goslings on the common.
• 1789: April 6, 1789 – Timothy the tortoise heaves up the sod under which he is buried.  Daffodil blows.
• 1788: April 6, 1788 – NIGHTINGALE heard in the church-litten coppice: qu.
• 1787: April 6, 1787 – Stone-curlews pass along over my house of an evening with a short quick note after dark.  Wry-neck pipes in the orchard.  Nightingale sings at Citraro in the nearer Calabria.
• 1782: April 6, 1782 – Many hail-storms about.  Sunny evening, pleasant.  The wind veered about to every black storm.  On this day the lavants began to break at Chawton, two fields above the church.
• 1773: April 6, 1773 – I am informed that three swallows appeared over a mill-pond at Bramshot on Sunday, March 28.  They were seen over the paper-mill pond by Mr Pym.
• 1772: April 6, 1772 – Wood lark sits.  Hirundo domestica!  Swallow comes early.  Cock snipe pipes & hums in the air.  Is the latter sound ventriloquous, or from the rapid motion of the wings?  The bird always descends when that noise is made, & the wings are violently agitated.

Notes:
The quest for hibernating swallows continues. I’d forgotten we had snow this time last year!