The Natural History of Selborne

Brother Thomas left us.

Began the new rick: the hay is very fine.  Tho’ my ever-greens are almost destroyed Mr Yalden’s bays, & laurels, & laurustines seem untouched.  Berberries, & haws frozen on the trees. No birds eat the former.

Much snow on the ground.  Ponds frozen-up & almost dry.  Moles work: cocks crow.  Ground soft under the snow.  No field-fares seen; no wag-tails.  Ever-greens miserably scorched; even ivy, in warm aspects.

Much snow on the ground.  My laurel-hedge, & laurustines, quite discoloured, & burnt as it were with the frost.

Stagg, the keeper, who inhabits the house at the end of Wolmer Pond, tells me that he has seen no wild-fowl on that lake during the whole frost; & that the whole expanse is entirely frozen up to such a thickness that the ice would bear a waggon.  500 ducks are seen some times together on that pond.

Many labourers are employed in shoveling the snow, & opening the hollow, stony lane, that leads to the forest.  Snow frozen so as almost to bear.

Farmer Lassam’s Dorsetshire ewes begin to lamb.  His turnips are frozen as hard as stones.

My laurel-hedge is scorched, & looks very brown!

Titmice pull the moss off the from trees in search for insects.

Deep snow still. Snow drifts on the down, & fills up the path which we shoveled.