The Natural History of Selborne

Soft rain.  Grass & corn improved by the rain already.  The long-horned bees bore their holes in the walks.

Sultry, & heavy clouds. Smell of sulphur in the air. Paid for near 20 wasps: several were breeders; but some were workers, hatched perhaps this year.

Strawberries blow well.  The first effectual rain after a long dry season.

Red kidney beans begin to climb their sticks.  Mulberry-tree in full leaf.  Snails copulate.

The autumn-sown brown lettuces, which stood the winter, still continue good.  The dry season last friday morning had lasted just 3 months:  the 9, 10, & 11 of March were very wet.

Watered the wall-trees well this evening with the engine: the leaves are not blotched & bloated this year, but many shoots are shrivelled, & covered with aphides.  Plums & pears abound; moderate crop of apples with me.  Vine-shoots very forward.

Hot sun, & brisk gale, sweet even.  Dusty beyond comparison.  Watered away five hogsheads of water.  Stoparola has five eggs.  Rooks live hard:  there are no chafers.  Barley & oats do not come up;  the fields look naked.  Some pairs of swifts always build in this village under the low thatched roofs of some of the meanest cottages:  & as there fails to be nests in those particular houses, it looks as if some of the same family still returned to the same place.

Bees swarm and sheep are shorn.  My firs did not blow this year.

Pulled off many hundreds of nectarines, which grew in clusters.  The leaves are distempered, & the trees make few shoots.  Vast crop of wall-fruit.

Rye in ears.