The Natural History of Selborne

Prospect behind Gilbert White’s house, Selborne

• 1793: March 10, 1793 – The sweet bells at Farnham, heard up the vale of a still evening, is a pleasant circumstance belonging to this situation, not only as occasioning agreeable associations in the mind, & remembrances of the days of my youth, when I once resided in that town: — but also by bringing to one’s recollection many beautiful passages from the poets respecting this tuneable & manly amusement, for which this island is so remarkable. Of these none are more distinguished, & masterly than the following:–
  “Let the village bells as often wont,/
  Come swelling on the breeze, & to the sun/
  Half set, ring merrily their evening round.
  – – – – /
  It is enough for me to hear the sound/
  Of the remote, exhilerating peal,/
  Now dying all away, now faintly heard./
  And now with loud, & musical relapse/
  In mellow changes pouring on the ear.”
  — The Village Curate
• 1792: March 10, 1792 – Bror Benjamin, & wife, & Rebecca dined with us.  White water-wagtail.
• 1790: March 10, 1790 – About this time Charles Etty sailed for Bengal direct, as second mate to the Earl Fitzwilliam India-man: Dundas captain.
• 1789: March 10, 1789 – Mr & Mrs Clement, & three children came.
• 1785: March 10, 1785 – Much beech-woods, & faggots carted home.
• 1783: March 10, 1783 – Vast lavants at Chawton.
• 1778: March 10, 1778 – Titlarks in cages essay to sing.  For want of sun hot-beds languish.  Every matter in field, & garden is very backward.
• 1775: March 10, 1775 – Rooks are very much engaged in the business of nidification: but they do not roost on the their nest-trees ’til some eggs are lain.  Rooks are continually fighting & pulling each other’s nests to pieces: these proceedings are inconsistent with living in such close community.  And yet if a pair offers to build on a single tree, the nest is plundered & demolished at once.  Some rooks roost on their nest-trees.
• 1771: March 10, 1771 – Hard frost, grey, severe wind.  The ground thawed much in the middle of the day.  Rooks build notwithstanding the severe weather.
• 1769: March 10, 1769 – Oats are sown.  Crows build: rooks build.  Ewes & lambs are turned into the what to eat it down.
• 1768: March 10, 1768 – Made the four-light Cucumr bed with 8 cart-loads of dung.  Cucumr blows in male bloom.

Notes
The passage is from The Village Curate by James Hurdis. For more on ‘ringing the changes’ check out the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers, complete with sound recordings from dozens of churches, sadly not including Farnham.

Reader John Brouwer de Koning adds a note:

March 10, 1790: Captain James Dundas’ E.I.C. ship Earl Fitzwilliam actually sailed from Portsmouth on March 14, 1790. It returned October 9, 1791. Source:
Google’s ‘A Register of Ships Employed in the Service of the Honorable The United East India Company’.

The Hutton Unconformity

• 1792: March 9, 1792 – Much sharp March weather.  Flights of snow, freezing all day.
• 1791: March 9, 1791 – Tapped the new hay-rick: the hay but moderate.
• 1789: March 9, 1789 – Loud thunder at Hinckley in Leicestershire, & lightening that did some damage: it happened in the midst of snow.
• 1785: March 9, 1785 – On this day Mr Charles Etty sailed in the Duke of Montrose India-man, Captain Gray, for Madeira, & Bombay.
• 1774: March 9, 1774 – This was the last day of the wet weather: but the waters were so encreased by this day’s deluge, that most astonishing floods ensued.  This rain & snow, coming on the back of such continual deluges, occasioned a flood in the S. of England beyond anything ever remembered before.  In the night between the 8th and 9th a vast fragment of an hanger in the parish of Hawkely slipped down; & at the same time several fields below were rifted & torn in a wonderful manner: two houses also & a barn were shattered, a road stopped-up, & some trees thrown-down.  50 acres of ground were disordered & damaged by this strange accident.  The turf of some pastures was driven into a sort of waves: in some places the ground sunk into hollows.

Notes:
The landslide mentioned in the 1774 entry is extensively covered in Letter XLV of The Natural History of Selborne:

“I began to suspect that though
our hills may never have journeyed that far, yet the ends of many of
them have slipped and fallen away at distant periods, leaving the
cliffs bare and abrupt. This seems to have been the case with Nore
and Whetham hills; and especially with the ridge between Harteley
Park and Ward-le-ham, where the ground has slid into vast
swellings and furrows; and lies still in such romantic confusion as
cannot be accounted for from any other cause.

Similar ideas about how the landscape changed through time were occurring to White’s contemporary James Hutton; he presented his Concerning the System of the Earth, its Duration, and Stability, which founded the science of geology, to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1785.

• 1788: March 8, 1788 – Earthed the bearing cucumber-bed.  The bed comes gently to its heat.
• 1787: March 8, 1787 – Frost, sun, pleasant, spring-like.  Pilewort blows.
• 1785: March 8, 1785 – Sowed radishes under the hot-bed screen.
• 1783: March 8, 1793 – Many redwings feeding in the meadow.
• 1783: March 8, 1783 – The crocus’s make a gaudy appearance, & bees gather on ym. The air is soft.  Violets blow.  Snow lies under hedges.  Men plow.
• 1780: March 8, 1780 – Mrs Snooke dyed, aged 86.
• 1773: March 8, 1773 – Seed-barley sells at 38s pr quarter!  a price never heard of before.
• 1771: March 8, 1771 – Wind N.W. Large flocks of wild-geese go over the forest to the Eastward.

Notes:
Mrs Snooke was Gilbert’s aunt; he was to inherit her tortoise Timothy, who appears frequently in these journals.

• 1793: March 7, 1793 – Trouts begin to rise: some angling takes place in this month. By Brother’s cucumbers are strong, & healthy.  Lady Stawell tells Mrs White that they have seen more woodcocks & snipes at their table this winter than usual.
• 1791: March 7, 1791 – Coltsfoot blows.  Stopped cucumbers.  Sowed dwarf lark-spurs.  Turned the dung.
• 1790: March 7, 1790 – The wheat in the N. field looks well: there has been no good crop since the year 1780.
• 1789: March 7, 1789 – Mr Richardson left us.
• 1786: March 7, 1786 – Snow drifted over hedges, & gates! Ring-doves, driven by hunger, come into John Hale’s garden, which is surrounded by houses! Black-birds, & thrushes die. A starving wigeon settled yesterday in the village, & was taken. Mention is made in the newspapers of several people that have perished in the snow. As Mr Ventris came from Faringdon, the drifted snow, being hard-frozen, bore his weight up to the tops of the stiles. The net hung over the cherry-trees is curiously coated over with ice.
• 1785: March 7, 1785 – Glazier’s bill… 2 -5 -10 for garden-lights, & hand-glasses.
• 1775: March 7, 1775 – Bror Harry’s strong beer, which was brewed last Easter monday with the hordeum nudum, is now tapped, & incomparably good: it is somewhat deeper-coloured than beer usually is in this country, not from the mat’s being higher dryed, but perhaps from the natural colour of the grain.  The barrel was by no means new, but old &  seasoned.  Wheat, it seems, makes also high-coloured beer.  Sad season for the sowing of spring-corn.  Just such weather this time twelvemonths.
• 1769: March 7, 1769 – Green woodpecker begins to laugh.  Last night I heard that short quick note of birds flying in the dark: if this should be the voice of Oedicnemus, as is supposed: then that bird, which is not seen in the dead of winter, is returned.  Blood-worms appear int he water: they are gnats in one state.
• 1768: March 7, 1768 – The Ground and paths drie very fast.  Wheat is fed down by sheep.  Beans are planted in ye fields.  Pease sown.  Cut down the new planted nectarines.

Notes:
“Hordeum nudum”– naked or Siberian barley. It was only introduced to England in 1768 so Gilbert’s brother was on the cutting edge. “Oedicnemus” is the Stone Curlew, a summer migrant with nocturnal habits. These were probably headed for Salisbury plain, where they can still be occasionally seen.

Just a reminder: Tomorrow night, Sunday the 8th, is the one-night-only one-man Gilbert White show at the Jermyn Street Theater!

• 1793: March 6, 1793 – Dogs-tooth violets blow.  Wag-tails on the grass-plots: they were here all this mild winter.  Goldfinches are not paired.
• 1790: March 6, 1790 – A couple & an half of woodcocks, & several pheasants were seen in Hartely-wood.
• 1789: March 6, 1789 – Mr Richardson came.
• 1786: March 6, 1786 – The birds are so distressed, that ring-doves resort to my garden to crop the leaves of the bore-cole! blackbirds come down to the scullery door. Snow little abated.
• 1783: March 6, 1783 – Flood at Gracious street.  All the fields full of water.  Snow much gone.  The barometer strangely low!  A slight shock of an earthquake at this time in Paris.
• 1782: March 6, 1782 – Almond tree in bloom.
• 1780: March 6, 1780 – Sky-larks mount & sing.
• 1779: March 6, 1779 – Radishes pulled in the cold ground.
• 1773: March 6, 1773 – Mild, still, pleasant weather.
• 1770: March 6, 1770 – Taxus baccata.  Marsh titmouse, parus palustirs, chirps.  This species is not so common as the great ox-eye or the blue nun.  It frequents hedges & bushes.
• 1769: March 6, 1769 – The cock swan at two year’s old.  “Between his white wings, mantling proudly, rows.”

• 1793: March 5, 1793 – Herons haunt the stream below the house, where the Wey meanders along the meads. Lord Stawell sent me a curious water-fowl, shot on Frinsham pond, which proved to be the Shoveler, remarkable for the largeness of it’s bill. It is a species of duck, & most exactly described by Mr Ray. Large wood-pecker laughs very loud. My Brother’s lambs frolick before the windows, & run to a certain hillock, which is their goal, from whence they hurry back; & put us in mind of the following passage in the Poet of nature:
  “Now the sprightly race/
  Invites them forth; then swift, the signal given,/
  They start way, & sweep the mossy mound/
  That runs around the hill.”
• 1791: March 5, 1791 – Boys play at hop-scotch, & cricket.  Some snow under hedges.  The wry-neck returns, & pipes.
• 1790: March 5, 1790 – The tortoise does not appear.  The trufle-man still follows his occupation: when the season is over, I know not.
• 1789: March 5, 1789 – Male yew trees shed their farina in clouds.
• 1786: March 5, 1786 – Vast icicles on eaves.
• 1783: March 5, 1783 – Snow 7 inches deep: no drifting.  Swift thaw.
• 1774: March 5, 1774 – Received as a present from Mr Hinton (to whom it was sent from Exeter, with many more) one of Mr William Lucombe’s new variety of oaks: it is said to be evergreen, tho’ raised at first from an acorn belong to a deciduous tree.  They are all grafted on stocks of common oaks.  My specimen is a fine young plant, & well-rooted.  The growth of this sort is said to be wonderful.  Vid: philosoph: transact: V: 62: for the year 1772.
• 1773: March 5, 1773 – The rooks at Faringdon have built several nests since sunday.
• 1768: March 5, 1768 – Cucumrs shew side-shoots.  Female yew tree shows rudiments of fruit.

Notes:

Nurseryman William Lucombe developed the evergreen oak in the 1760s. From the Lucombe Oak page the-tree.org.uk: “Mr. Lucombe is also famous for the fact that he felled the original hybrid in 1785. He decided to keep some of the timber to make planks for his own future coffin. The boards were stored under his bed for this purpose. However, he lived an exceptionally long life and became 102 years old, which meant that the coffin-planks decayed before Mr Lucumbe did!”

The “Poet of Nature” was James Thomson; this passage is from “The Seasons”. There are many quotations from The Seasons in the journals– see the ‘poetry’ tag under ‘Categories’ for more.

• 1793: March 4, 1793 – We are much amused every morning by a string of Lord Stawell’s Hunters that are aired, exercised, & watered in a meadow opposite to the windows of this house.  There seem to be two sets, which appear alternately on the days that they are not hunted.  He has in all sixteen.
• 1790: March 4, 1790 – Timothy the tortoise comes forth: he does not usually appear ’till the middle of April.
• 1785: March 4, 1785 – New worked up, & mended the garden-lights broken by the hail last summer.
• 1783: March 4, 1783 – Snow on the ground 4 or 5 inc. deep.  Snow melts on sunny roofs.
• 1774: March 4, 1774 – Daws resort to churches.
• 1773: March 4, 1773 – Pulmonaria oficianalis.  Papilio rhamni.
• 1771: March 4, 1771 – Great distress among the flocks; the turneps are all rotten.  The ewes have little milk, & the lambs all die.
• 1770: March 4, 1770 – Chrysopenium oppsitifolium.  Rooks seem to have finished new nests.  Crocuss make a gay appearance.
• 1769: March 4, 1769 – Spring day. Young chickens.  Crocuss makes a gallant shew.

Notes:

Chrysopenium oppsitifolium— Golden Saxifrage. Pulmonaria officianalis— Lungwort. Papilio Rhamni, the Brimstone Butterfly– a photo of Linnaeus’ own specimen.

Wild daffodil, photo by Martin Hirtreiter

• 1793: March 3, 1793 – The wind last night blowed-off some tiles from my roof.  This storm did much mischief about the kingdom.
• 1791: March 3, 1791 – Sent me by Lord Stawell a Sea-mall, or Gull, & a Coccothraustes, or Gross-beak: the latter is seldom seen in England, & only in the winter.
• 1790: March 3, 1790 – Sheep turned into the wheat.
• 1788: March 3, 1788 – A squirrel in my hedges.
• 1786: March 3, 1786 – Netted the wall-cherry-trees, to preserve the buds from the finches.
• 1782: March 3, 1782 – Daffodil opens.  Missel-thrush sings.
• 1778: March 3, 1778 – Turkey-cock struts & gobbles.
• 1775: March 3, 1775 – Rooks begin to build.  They began the same day at Fyfield.  Swine & sheep, for such large quadrupeds, become prolific very early; since a sow at four months old requires the boar: & ram-lambs, which fall in Jan. & Feb. if well kept, will supply the wants of their own dams by the following Octobr, & beget lambs for the next year.  Horses & kine seldom procreate ’til they are two years old.
• 1771: March 3, 1771 – Rain, dark & raw.  Considerable rain in the night.  Harsh wind.

• 1791: March 2, 1791 – Seven cart-loads of hot dung carried in for the cucumber-bed: 5 loads from Hale, 1 from Parsons, & 1 of my own.
• 1790: March 2, 1790 – Sowed the meadow with ashes; of my own 22 bushels, bought 39: total 61.
• 1789: March 2, 1789 – Sowed the great meadow with ashes; with 49 bushels bought of neighbours, & with 28 bushels of our own: total 77.
• 1788: March 2, 1788 – A strong smell of London smoke.
• 1786: March 2, 1786 – Bull-finches injure the fruit-trees by eating the buds.
• 1778: March 2, 1778 – Snow in the night, sun, & mild.
• 1774: March 2, 1774 – Venus shadows.
• 1773: March 2, 1773 – Crocuss in high beauty.
• 1771: March 2, 1771 – Glass sinks steadily tho’ ye weather looks like dry.  Turneps are all rotten, & the wheat-fields look quite bare, & destitute of all verdure.  Farmer parsons sows wheat in his fallow behind Beacher’s shop, which was drowned in the winter  Mem: to observe what crop he gets from this spring-sowing.  The spring sowing round this village proved the finest wheat & best crop.
• 1769: March 2, 1769 – Wheat on the clays looks sadly poor & thin.  Stormy wind by fits.

• 1792: March 1, 1792 – The laurustines, & the young shoots of the honey-suckles are not hurt by the late frosts.
• 1785: March 1, 1785 – Carted six loads of hot dung for the cucumber-bed.
• 1784: March 1, 1784 – Brother Tho found a grass-hopper lark dead in his out-let: it seemed to be starved.  I was not aware that they were about in the winter.
• 1772: March 1, 1772 – An ash-coloured butcher-bird was shot this winter in Rotherfield Park: lanius seu collurio cintereus major: the only one I ever heard of in these parts.
• 1770: March 1, 1770 – Calculus aegagropila was found in the stomach of a fat ox.  It was black, shining, & round, & about the size of a large Sevil-orange.  See Syst:Nat: vol: 4: p:176: n: 5 . Pheasant crows.
• 1769: March 1, 1769 – Sheep rot in a most terrible manner in the low grounds.

Notes:

The ‘grasshopper-lark’ or Grasshopper warbler is a summer migrant (now red-listed); the dead specimen may have been either a very early migrant or a stray from the year before. “Syst: Nat:” is Linnaeus’s Systema Naturae; a ‘calculus’ is a hard object formed in an animal’s stomach; Harry Potter fans might recognize this as a bezoar.