The Natural History of Selborne

• 1793: April 20, 1793 – The Cuckoo is heard on Greatham common.
• 1791: April 20, 1791 – Finished weeding, & dressing all the flower-borders.  Several nightingales between the village, & comb-wood pond.  Comb-wood coppice was cut last winter.
• 1790: April 20, 1790 – Set the old Bantam speckled Hen with eleven eggs.  My cook-maid desired there might be an odd egg for good luck: … numero Deus impare gaudet.
• 1789: April 20, 1789 – Apricots set very fast.  The willows in bloom are beautiful.  Men pole their hops: barley is sowing at the forest side.  Several swallows, h. martins, & bank-martins play over Oakhanger ponds.  The horses wade belly deep over those ponds, to crop the grass floating on the surface of the water.
• 1786: April 20, 1786 – Slipped out & planted many doz. of good polyanths.  Young Geo: Tanner shot a water-ouzel, merula aquatica, near Ja: Knight’s ponds.  This is the first bird of the sort that was ever observed in this parish.  This bird, being only pinioned, was caught alive, & put into a cage, to which it soon became reconciled; & is fed with woodlice, & small snails.  W: ouzels are very common in the mountainous parts of the N. of England, & in N. Wales.  They haunt rocky streams, & water-falls; & tho’ not web-footed often dive into currents in pursuit of insects.
• 1784: April 20, 1784 – No garden-crops sowed yet with me; the ground is too wet.  Artichokes seem to be almost killed.
• 1783: April 20, 1783 – Some whistling plovers in the meadows towards the forest.
• 1782: April 20, 1782 – On this day Admiral Barrington discovered s convoy newly from Brest.  His fleet took 12 or thirteen transports; a French man of war of 74 guns, called the Pagasus; & a 64 gun ship, named the Actionnaire, armee in flute.
• 1778: April 20, 1778 – Sun, showers of hail & sleet.
• 1777: April 20, 1777 – The house snail begins to appear: the naked black-snail comes forth much sooner.  Slugs, which are covered with slime, as whales are with blubber, are moving all the winter in mild weather.
• 1774: April 20, 1774 – Turtle cooes.
• 1773: April 20, 1773 – Regulus non cristatus medius sings: a pretty plaintive note: some call it a joyous note: it begins with an high note & runs down.  The titlark, a sweet songster, not only sings flying in its descent, & on trees; but also on the ground, as it walks about feeding in pastures.
• 1772: April 20, 1772 – Thick ice.  No swallows appear.
• 1771: April 20, 1771 – The dry weather has lasted five weeks this day.  Just rain enough to discolour the pavements.  Myriads of minute frogs, encouraged by those few drops of rain, migrate from the ponds & pools where they were hatched.  Hence it appears that severe frost doth not interrupt the hatching & growth of young frogs.

Illustration from Stephen Hales’ Vegetable Statics

• 1793: April 19, 1793 – Showers of hail, sleet.  Gleams.  Timothy, who has withdrawn himself for several days, appears.
• 1792: April 19, 1792 – Redstart appears.  Daffodils are gone: mountain-snow-drops, & hyacinths in bloom; the latter very fine: fritillaries going.  Vast flood at Whitney in Oxfordshire, on the Windrush.
• 1791: April 19, 1791 – Mr Chandler & son went away on a visit.  Began to use the winter lettuce.  Tho’ a swallow or two were seen in the village as long ago as the 7th yet have they absconded for some time past! The house-martin is also withdrawn; no Swift has yet appeared at Selborne; what was seen was at Bentley.
• 1789: April 19, 1789 – The vines of John Stevens, which were trimmed late, not till March, bleed much; & will continue to do so until the leaf is fully expanded.  It is remarkable, that tho’ this is the case while the trees are leafless, yet lop them as much as you please when the foliage is out, they will not shed one drop.  Dr Hales was not acquainted with this circumstance when he cut-off a large bough of his vine at Teddington late in the spring; & it was lucky for science that he was not.  For his sollicitude for his vine, & his various attempts to stop the effusion of the sap, led him step by step to many expedients, which by degrees brought on the abundance of curious experiments, & ended in that learned publication known by the name of Vegetable Statics, a work which has done much honour to the Author, & has been translated into many modern languages.
• 1788: April 19, 1788 – Mended the fences this week all round my outlet.  Insects abound; yet no swallows to be seen.  The voice of the Cuckoo is heard in the land.
• 1786: April 19, 1786 – Sowed holly-hocks, columbines, & sweet Williams.
• 1784: April 19, 1784 – Timothy the tortoise begins to stir: he heaves-up the mould that lies over his back.  Redstart is heard at the verge of the highwood against the common.
• 1783: April 19, 1783 – One house-martin about the stables.  Sultry out of the wind.  The garden is watered every day.
• 1778: April 19, 1778 – The little laughing yellow wren whistles.
• 1776: April 19, 1776 – Grass-hopper-lark whispers.  The bombylius medius is much about in March & the beginning of April, & soon seems to retire.  It is a very early insecte.  Pulled won the old martins nests against the brew-house & stable: they get foul & full of vermin.  These abounded with fleas, & the cases of Hippoboscae hirundinis.  Besides while these birds are building they are much more in sight, & very amusing.
• 1774: April 19, 1774 – The titlark begins to sing: a delicate songster!
• 1773: April 19, 1773 – Blackcap sings.  The sedge-bird a delicate polyglott.
• 1772: April 19, 1772 – Severe wind.  Snow on the ground.  Swallows abound.
• 1771: April 19, 1771 – Hay risen to four pounds per ton.  High rumbling wind.
• 1769: April 19, 1769 – Regulus on cristatus voce stridula locustae.  This is the largest of the three willow wrens: it haunts the tops of tall trees making a shivering noise & shaking its wings.  It’s colours are more vivid than those of the other two species.

Notes:
Stephen Hales published Vegetable Statics (click the link for a full scan of this handsome book) in 1727. A very model of the early Enlightenment scientist, he went on to do early experiments in animal circulation; invented several useful farming devices, irrigation systems, and life-saving ventilators for closed environments; and founded The Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce. Like Gilbert White, he was a country clergyman.

The 1788 entry refers to the Song of Solomon 2.12: “The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land” (turtledove, that is).

Hippoboscae hirundinis, or stenepteryx hirunidinis, an unappealing tick-like parasite.

Listen to a nightingale recording at the Freesound Project.

• 1791: April 18, 1791 – Mr Ben White came from London.
• 1790: April 18, 1790 – A boy has taken three little young Squirrels in their nest, or drey, as it is called in these parts.  These small creatures he put under the care of a cat who had lately lost her kittens, & finds that she nurses & suckles them with the same assiduity & affection, as if they were her own offspring.  This circumstance corroborates my suspicion, that the mention of deserted & exposed children being nurtured by female beasts of prey who had lost their young, may not be so improbable an incident as many have supposed: — & therefore may be a justification of those authors who have gravely mentioned what some have deemed to be a wild & improbable story.  So many people went to see the little squirrels suckled by a cat, that the foster mother became jealous of her charge, & in pain for their safety; & therefore hid them over the ceiling, where one died.  This circumstance shews her affection for these foundling, & that she supposes the squirrels to be her own young.  The hens, when they have hatched ducklings, are equally attached to them as if they were their own chickens.  For a leveret nursed by a cat see my Nat: History, p. 214.  I have said “that it is not one whit more marvellous that Romulus, & Remus, in their infant & exposed state, should be nursed by a she wolf, than that a poor little suckling leveret should be fostered & cherished by a bloody grimalkin.”
• 1787: April 18, 1787 – Cut a brace of fine cucumbers.
• 1786: April 18, 1786 – Men sow clover in their wheat.
• 1785: April 18, 1785 – The large shivering willow-wren.  The Cuckow is heard this day.
• 1783: April 18, 1783 – A nightingale sings in my fields.
• 1781: April 18, 1781 – Some bank-martins at Wallingford-bridge.
• 1779: April 18, 1779 – Some young grass-hoppers appear: they are very minute.
• 1777: April 18, 1777 – The golden-crested wren frequents the fir-trees, & probably builds in them.  Tho’ the spring has been remakably harsh & drying, yet the ground crumbles, & dresses very well for the spring-crops. The reason is, the driness of the winter: since the ground bakes hardest after it has been most drenched with water.
• 1776: April 18, 1776 – Mowed all round the garden.  Cut the first brace of cucumbers: they were well-grown.  Nightingale sings.
• 1775: April 18, 1775 – Luscinia.  Cuculus.  Inyx.
• 1773: April 18, 1773 – Ground very wet.  Nightingale sings.
• 1772: April 18, 1772 – Snow covers the ground.
• 1771: April 18, 1771 – Luscinia.  Cut the first cucumber; not a very fair fruit.  Swallow.  Colds & coughs universal.
• 1769: April 18, 1769 – Oedicnemus sings late at night.
• 1768: April 18, 1768 – Nuthatch, sitta, makes its jarring, clattering noise in the trees.

• 1792: April 17, 1792 – Saw a pair of swallows at Alton.
• 1789: April 17, 1789 – Five gallons of french brandy from London.  Cucumbers show fruit in bloom.  Cuculus cuculat: the voice of the cuckoo is heard in Blackmoor woods.  Sowed hollyhocks, columbines, snapdragons, stocks, mignonette, all from S. Lambeth, in a bed in the garden: also sweet williams, & Cantebury bells.
• 1787: April 17, 1787 – Pears, cherries, & plums in fine bloom along the road.  Some hundreds of martins were seen to pass over Rolle towards Geneva, & two swifts; the day was wet & cold.
• 1786: April 17, 1786 – Sowed a box of polyanth seeds, of our own saving.
• 1784: April 17, 1784 – The buds of the vines are not swelled yet at all.  In fine springs they have shot by this time two or three inches.
• 1783: April 17, 1783 – Tortoise weighs 6 ae 11 1/4 oun. He begins to eat.
• 1782: April 17, 1782 – Several Black-caps are heard to sing.
• 1780: April 17, 1780 – On this day Sir G: B: Rodney defeated the French fleet of Martinique.
• 1779: April 17, 1779 – Rain greatly wanted.  No spring corn comes up.  The dry weather has now lasted four months; from the 15th of Decemr 1778.  Apple-trees blow this year a full month soon than last year.  The hanger is pretty well in full leaf: last year not ’til May 15.  Musca meridiana.
• 1775: April 17, 1775 – Mrs Snooke’s tortoise came out of the ground the second time, for the summer.
• 1774: April 17, 1774 – The middle willow wren sings a plaintive, but pleasing note.
• 1773: April 17, 1773 – Bank martin appears.  House martin appears.  Many swallows.  Grass grows very fast.  Ring-ouzels are first seen on their spring migration.  They are very late this year.
• 1772: April 17, 1772 – Regulus non cristatus a pretty paintive note.  Chilly air.  Ice.  Martins appear.
• 1771: April 17, 1771 – Snow on the ground.  No oedicnemus (land curlew) has been heard yet.
• 1770: April 17, 1770 – Averdavines in Oxfordshire.  These were passeres torquati, or reed-sparrows.
• 1768: April 17, 1768 – Rooks have young.  Young ravens fledged.  Forked-tailed kite lays three eggs.  Redstart sings for the first time.

• 1793: April 16, 1793 – Made a hot bed for the two light-frame with lapped glass.
• 1792: April 16, 1792 – Great bloom of cherries, pears, & plums.
• 1787: April 16, 1787 – Men are busy in their barley-season.
• 1786: April 16, 1786 – Timothy the tortoise, after a fast of more tha five months, weighs 6 ae. 12 oz. 11 dr. Some sow in Shalden lanes.  Cromn Imperial blows.
• 1784: April 16, 1784 – Nightingale heard in Maiden-dance.  Ring-dove builds in my fields.  Black-cap sings.
• 1783: April 16, 1783 – Fine barley-season.  Vast bloom of plums, & cherries.
• 1778: April 16, 1778 – Planted three beds of asparagus.  Planted potatoes.  No swallow.
• 1773: April 16, 1773 – Redstart returns. Most soft growing weather.  Thomas begins to mow the walks.
• 1772: April 16, 1772 – The ground is in a sad wet condition; & the farmers much behind on their spring sowing. No seeds sown yet in my garden. An high rumbling wind.
• 1770: April 16, 1770 – Green wood-pecker laughs at all the world.  Storm-cock sings.

• 1793: April 15, 1793 – Sowed fringed bore-cole, & Savoys, & leeks.
• 1791: April 15, 1791 – A nightingale sings in my outlet. Sowed sweet peas, candy-tuft, sweet alyssum, &c.  A man brought me half a dozen good mushrooms from a pasture field!  a great rarity at this season of the year!
• 1788: April 15, 1788 – Pronged the asparagus-beds. Sowed Mrs Eveleigh’s curious asters in a hot-bed; & several perennials in the cold ground.
• 1785: April 15, 1785 – Hot sun. Muddy sky. Goose-berries & honey-suckles begin to bud, & look green. Pronged the asparagus beds. My fine jasmine is dead. Timothy the tortoise roused himself from his winter-slumbers & came forth. He was hidden in the laurel-hedge under the wall-nut tree, among the dead leaves.
• 1784: April 15, 1784 – Dogs-toothed violets blow.
• 1780: April 15, 1780 – Cucumbers swell.  Tortoise sleeps on.  Radishes are drawn.
• 1779: April 15, 1779 – Thunder-like clouds in the W. at break of day.  Nightingale sings in my outlet.  Black-cap sings.  Dark clouds to the W. & N.W.  Lightening.
• 1773: April 15, 1773 – Titlark begins to whilst.  Wind changing with every shower: soft growing weather.
• 1772: April 15, 1772 – Luscinia!  Nightingale sings sweetly.  Grass grows.  Wheat looks well.
• 1771: April 15, 1771 – Hail in the night.  Flights of snow at times: harsh biting day.  Themomr abroad at 10 at night, down to 14 degrees!!!

• 1789: April 14, 1789 – Pulled down the old forsaken martin’s nests in some of which we found dead young.  They grow fetid, & foul from long use.  Redstart appears in my tall hedges.
• 1786: April 14, 1786 – Timothy heaves up the mould, & comes out of his hibernacula under the wall-nut tree.
• 1779: April 14, 1779 – Two cuckows appear in my outlet.  The mole-cricket jars.  The wry-neck appears, & pipes.
• 1774: April 14, 1774 – The blackcap begins to sing in my fields: a most punctual bird in it’s return. * In the season of nidifcation the wildest birds are comparatively rare. Thus the ringdove breeds in my fields tho’ they are continually frequented: & the missel-thrush, tho’ most shy in the autumn & winter, builds in my garden close to a walk where people are passing all day long.
• 1772: April 14, 1772 – Began mowing the grass walks.
• 1771: April 14, 1771 – Swallow appears as last year amidst frost & snow!
• 1770: April 14, 1770 – Butterflies abound. Flies swarm. Grass lamb. Cut a brace more of large cucumbers. Ants appear. Primula veris. Drabaverna.

• 1793: Apirl 13, 1793 – Bat out.  This is the twelfth dry day.
• 1792: April 13, 1792 – A great thunder-storm at Woodstock, & Islip: the Charwel much flooded, & discoloured.  No rain at Oxford.  Prodigious was the damage done about the Kingdom on this day by storms of thunder, lightening, & vast torrents, & floods, & hail.  The town of Bromsgrove in Worcestershire was  quite deluged, & the shops & sitting rooms filled with water.  A house was burnt at some place; & in others many people hurt, & some killed.
• 1788: April 13, 1788 – Bees frequent the cucumber-frames.  Nightingales heard below Temple.
• 1787: April 13, 1787 – Sam White elected fellow of oriel College in Oxford.
• 1786: April 13, 1786 – Daws are building in the church.  Nightingale sings at French-mere.
• 1784: April 13, 1784 – Mutton per pound 5d, Veal 5d, Lamb 6d, Beef 4d.  At Selborne.
• 1783: April 13, 1783 – Three swallows at Goleigh.
• 1778: April 13, 1778 – One beech is in full leaf in the Lythe.
• 1776: April 13, 1776 – Rain is much wanted.  At Fyfield; charadrius oedicnemus returns & clamors April 14; first swallow, April 16; nightingale April 16; cuckow Ap. 20; swifts first seen Apr: 26: came to their nesting-place May 8.  At Lyndon, in Rutland first swallow Apr: 16; first swift May 6th.
• 1775: April 13, 1775 – The barley-season goes on briskly.  Hops are poling.  Curlews clamour.  *The Saxon word hlithe, whith the h aspirate before it, signifies clivus: hence no doubt two abrupt steep pasture-fields near this village are called the short, & long lithe.  Much such another steep pasture at about a mile distance is also called the lithe.  Steethe in Saxon sigifies ripa, a perpendicular bank: hence steethe swalwe, riparia hirundo.
• 1774: April 13, 1774 – Apricots begin to set.  Planted seven rows of potatoes.  Nightingale in my fields.
• 1772: April 13, 1772 – Redstart appears and whistles.  Swallow.  Garden too wet for sowing.
• 1771: April 13, 1771 – The dry weather has lasted just a month this day.  Dry weather is always supposed to help the wheat in the clays: but the wheat in general is so poor this year, that it is hardly seen on the ground.  It will be worth remarking at harvest how the crop will turn out.
• 1769: April 13, 1769 – Regulus non cristatus medius.  The second-sized willow-wren has a plaintive, but pleasing note, widely different from that of the first which is harsh and sharp.  Merula torquata.  The ring-ouzels appear again on Noar-hill in their return to the northward: they make but a few days stay in their spring visit; but rest with us near a fortnight as they go to the Southward at Michaelmas.
• 1768: April 13, 1768 – Hirundo domestica!!!

The Battle of Les Saintes, diagram by Pinpin

• 1793: April 12, 1793 – The Nightingale was heard this harsh evening near James Knight’s ponds.  This bird of passage,  I observe, comes as early in cold cutting springs, as mild ones!
• 1792: April 12, 1792 – Thermometer at Fyfield 72! in the shade.
• 1791: April 12, 1791 – Mountain snow-drops blow. Black thorns blossom. Hannah White walks up to the alcove before breakfast.
• 1788: April 12, 1788 – Mowed the grass of the fairey-ring on the grass-plot.  Sent Mr White of Newton some male cucumber-blossoms in a box, to set some fruit in bloom in his frames.  Fritillaria blows.
• 1783: April 12, 1783 – Wheat mends.  Barley-grounds work well.  My grass-walks begin to be mown.  Grass-lamb six pence pr pound: veal 5d: fresh butter 9 1/2 d.
• 1782: April 12, 1782 – A person thought he heard a black-cap.  On this day Sr George Rodney in the W. Indies obtained a great victory over Admiral de Grasse, whom he took in the Ville de Paris.  He also captured four more French ships of the line, & sunk one.  On the 19th Admiral Hood, who was detatched with his division in pursuit of the flying enemy, took two more line of battle ships, & two frigates in the passage of Mono, between Porto Rico, & Domingo.
• 1778: April 12, 1778 – Like Midsummer!
• 1776: April 12, 1776 – Oaks are felled; the bark runs.
• 1774: April 12, 1774 – Nightingale sings.  Three swallows appear.  Several bank-martins about the verge of the forest.
• 1772: April 12, 1772 – The cuckow is heard in the forest of Bere.  Grass grows apace.  The great black & white Gull, larus maximus ex albo & nigro seu caeruleo nigricante varius Raii, was shot lately near Chawton:  Larus marinus Linn: The head & part of the neck of this bird is dotted with black small spots.
• 1770: April 12, 1770 – Rooks have young. Snow melts away very fast. Peaches & nectarines are in full bloom. Apricot bloom seems to be cut off. Barley begins to be sown.

Notes:
More on the Battle of the Saintes here.

• 1793: April 11, 1793 – Hoed & cleaned the alleys.
• 1792: April 11, 1792 – Men how their wheat, which is very forward, & fine. Thomas in my absence planted beans, & sowed carrots, parsnips, cabbage-seed, onions, lettuce, & radishes.
• 1791: April 11, 1791 – Timothy the tortoise marches forth on the grass-plot and grazes.
• 1790: April 11, 1790 – Deeps snow at Selborne: five inches deep!  Red-starts, Fly-catchers, & Black-caps arrive.  If these little delicate beings are birds of passage (as we have reason to suppose they are, because they are never seen in winter) how could they, feeble as they seem, bear up, against such storms of snow & rain; & make their way thro’ such meteorous turbulencies, as one should suppose would embarrass & retard the most hardy & resolute of the winged nation?  Yet they keep their appointed times & seasons, & in spite of frosts & winds return to their stations periodically , as if they had met with nothing to obstruct them.  The withdrawing & appearance of the short-winged summer birds is a very puzzling circumstance in natural History!
• 1789: April 11, 1789 – White frost, sun.  Timothy the tortoise weighs 6 ae. 14 oz.   Dug several plots of garden ground & ground digs well.
• 1785: April 11, 1785 – Farmers wish much for rain.
• 1783: April 11, 1783 – Several bank-martins near the great lake on this side Cobham.  Two swallows at Ripley.
• 1782: April 11, 1782 – Forked the asparagus-beds, & planted some firs in the outlet.
• 1781: April 11, 1781 – While two labourers were examinnig the shrubs & cavities at the S.E. end of the hanger, a house-martin came down the street & flew into a nest under Benham’s eaves.  This appearance is rather early for that bird.  Quae: whether it was disturbed by the two men?
• 1779: April 11, 1779 – Ivy-berries are ripe: the birds eat them, & stain the walks with their dung.
• 1778: April 11, 1778 – The plaster of my great parlor now dries very fast.
• 1777: April 11, 1777 – Returned from London to Selborne.
• 1775: April 11, 1775 – Two swallows.  Black snail.  Some few apricots, which escaped the frost, seem to be set.  Some peach & nect. bloom not destoryed.  The trees were struck full of ivy-boughs, which seem to have been of service against the severe cold.
• 1774: April 11, 1774 – Shell-snails come out in troops.
• 1773: April 11, 1773 – Goose-berry buds in leaf.  Anemone nemorosa.  Cardamine pratensis.
• 1771: April 11, 1771 – Regulus non crist: minor.  The second spring-bird of passage.  No rain since the 16th of March: dirty lanes all dryed up.
• 1770: April 11, 1770 – Kite sits.  Raven has young.  Swallow amidst frost & snow.