The Natural History of Selborne

Hops are not large.  The fly-catchers, which abounded in my outlet, seem to have withdrawn themselves.  Some grapes begin turn colour.  Men bind wheat.  Sweet harvest, & hop-picking weather.  Hirundines congregate on barns, & trees, & on the tower.  The hops are smaller than they were last year.  There is fine clover in many fields.

Bror T. W. & Th. H. W. came from London.

Mr Thomas Mulso left us & went to Winton.

Fog, sun, pleasant showers, moonshine.  Rain in the night.  Mushrooms begin to come.  I see only now & then a wasp.

Mr Thomas Mulso comes from London.  Wry-necks, birds so called, appear on the grass-plots and walks: they walk a little as well as hop, & thrust their bills into the turf, in quest, I conclude, of ants, which are their food.  While they hold their bills in the grass, they draw out their prey with their tongues, which are so long as to be coiled round their heads.

Mr Charles Etty returns from Canton.

Bees feed on the plums, & the mellow goose-berries.  They often devour the peaches, & nectarines.

Gathered a bushel-basket of well-grown cucumbers, 238 in number.  Molly White, & T.H. White left us, & went to London.

Michaelmass daisies begin to blow.

Colchicum autumnale, naked boys, blows.  Wheat-harvest goes on finely.