The Natural History of Selborne

• 1793: January 11, 1793 – On this day came my Nep. John White of Sarum with his bride late Miss Louisa Neave, who encreased my Nep. & nieces to the number of 62.
• 1792: January 11, 1791 – Ten weeks stocks blow: crocus’s’ sprout, & swell.
• 1790: January 11, 1790 – The white spotted Bantam hen lays.
• 1787: January 11, 1787 – This afternoon I saw at the house of my neighbour Mr Burbey, 54 young girls, which he entertained with tea, & cakes: they were, except a few, natives of this village.
• 1785: January 11, 1785 – Men begin to plough again.
• 1776: January 11, 1776 – Some lambs fall.
• 1774: January 11, 1774 – Some snow on the ground.  Aurora.
• 1771: January 11, 1771 – Small snow on the ground.  Water bottles freeze in chambers.
• 1768: January 12, 1768 – A cock-pheasant appeared on the dunghill at the end of my stable; tamed by hunger. Laurustines appear as if scorched in the fire. Portugal laurel, red American Juniper untouched. Nuthatch, sitta, chatters. Garden-plants were well preserved under the snow. Turneps in general little damaged. Wheat, being secured by the snow, looks finely.

• 1793: January 10, 1793 – Mr. Churton left us.
• 1790: January 10, 1790 – A ripe wood-straw-berry on a bank, & several blossoms.  Grass grows on the walks.
• 1788: January 10, 1788 – The dry summer killed the new planted Sycamore on the plestor.
• 1784: January 10, 1784 – Small snow on the ground.  Mr Churton left us.
• 1782: January 10, 1782 – The earth is well-drenched; streams run; & torrents fall from the fields into the hollow lanes.
• 1779: January 10, 1779 – My themometer is broken.
• 1777: January 10, 1777 – Thaw.  Tipulae are playing about as if there had been no frost today.
• 1774: January 10, 1774 – Wild ducks about.
• 1773: January 10, 1773 – Nuthatch chirps.  Hen chaffinches congregate in vast flocks.

• 1790: January 9, 1790 – Water-cresses come in.
• 1789: January 9, 1789 – The farmers are in pain about their turnips, both those on the ground, & those that are stacked under hedges.  The people at Forestside drive all their cattle to be watered at a spring issuing out at Temple grounds at the foot of Temple hanger.  Oakhanger ponds, & Cranmer ponds are dry.  The frost has lasted now just seven weeks: it began Novr 23.  T. Turner has sunk his well 9 feet without coming to water.  He now desists on account of the expence.  My well, I now find, has more than three feet of water; but the rope is too short to reach it.
• 1788: January 9, 1788 – Mr Churton left us & went to Waverly.
• 1786: January 9, 1786 – Mr Churton left us.
• 1784: January 9, 1784 – A grey crow shot near the village.  This is only the third that I ever saw in this parish.  Some wild-geese in the village down the stream.
• 1782: January 9, 1782 – The wind blowed-down the rain-measurer.  Wells rise very fast, & are now up to their usual pitch.
• 1774: January 9, 1774 – Rain for 24 hours: vast flood.  Could not get along down at the pond all day.
• 1772: January 9, 1772 – Snow on the ground, & thick ice.
• 1771: January 9, 1771 – Frost comes within doors.  Thermometer within 28, in the wine vault 43 1/2, abroad 24.
• 1770: January 9, 1770 – Cocks crow much.  The sky promises for fall.
• 1769: January 9, 1769 – The bunting, emberiza alba, appears in great flocks about Bradley.  Linnets congregate in vast flocks, & make a kind of singing as they sit on trees.  Rooks resort to their nest-trees.  Hepaticas, winter-aconite, wall-flowers, daiseys, polyanths, black hellebores blow.  Wheat looks well on ye downs.
• 1768: January 9, 1768 – Lambs begin to fall.  Nothing frozen in my cellar.  Titmice pull straws from the eaves.

• 1792: January 8, 1792 – Mr. Churton left us, & returned to Oxford.
• 1789: January 8, 1789 – A severe frost prevails all over the continent.
• 1788: January 8, 1788 – Old John Carpenter planted a Sycamore tree on the Plestor near the pound.  Furze blows.  The amenta of hasels open & shed their farina.  Ivy-berries swell.
• 1787: January 8, 1787 – Wheeled dung into the garden, & to the basons in Baker’s hill.  Mr Churton left us.
• 1785: January 8, 1785 – Received five gallons, & seven pints of French brandy from Mr Edmd Woods.
• 1784: January 8, 1784 – Some wild-ducks up the stream near the village.  Much wild fowl on the lakes in the forest.
• 1783: January 8, 1783 – Blowing with driving rain.  Walls sweat again.
• 1780: January 8, 1780 – Hard frost.  On this day Sr George Rodney took a large Spanish convoy off cape Finister.
• 1777: January 8, 1777 – Bottles of water frozen in chambers.  Haws frozen on the hedges & spoiled so as to be no longer of any service to the birds.
• 1770: January 8, 1770 – Frost begins to come in at a door.  The thermometer abroad sunk to 25; & in the wine-vault rose to 44.
• 1768: January 8, 1768 – My provisions are kept in the Cellar.  Birds pull the moss from ye trees.

Notes:
The BThe Royal Navy’s page on Lord George Rodney. The action at Finistere is desribed in Michael Palmer’s “Command at Sea” (thanks to Google Books). Lord Rodney will reappear next week in his better-know victory at Cape St. Vincent.

Blanchard’s balloon, T. Bewick

• 1793: January 7, 1793 – Nephew Holt White came.
• 1790: January 7, 1790 – Mr Churton left us, & went to Waverly.  Sweet weather: gnats play in the air.  Paths dry.
• 1789: January 7, 1789 – Salted-up a small hog in the pickling tub– weight 8 scores, & eight pounds: the meat was young, & delicate.  The people at Froxfield fetch their water from Petersfield up Stoner hill.
• 1788: January 7, 1788 – The woodmen begin to fell beeches in the hanger for the second time: they now enter where they left off last year on the S.E. side of Shop-slidder.
• 1785: January 7, 1785 – Shook the snow from the ever-greens, & shovelled the walks.  Snow-scenes very beautiful!  On this day Mr Blanchard, & Dr Jeffries rose in a balloon from Dover-cliff, & passing over the channel towards France, landed in the forest De Felmores, just 12 miles up into the country.  These are the first aeronauts that have dared to take a flight over the sea!!!
• 1784: January 7, 1784 – Hoar frost lies all day.  Frost comes in a door.
• 1783: January 7, 1783 – Much rain in the night.  Flood at Gracious street.
• 1775: January 7, 1775 – Some ivy berries half-grown.
• 1769: January 7, 1769 – The ground is much dryed: people plow comfortably.  Wheat comes up well.
• 1768: January 7, 1768 – Laurels begin to suffer.  Laurustines suffer.

Notes:
Read much more on Blanchard and Jeffries’ historic balloon flight, which featured bickering, skullduggery, and trousers desperately thrown overboard. The site includes a downloadable paper model.. I certainly intend to make one as soon as possible! Also of interest is a scan of a 1910 Flight magazine account of the event (links to PDF), with plenty of detail, including the curious detail of cork life-vests.

• 1793: January 6, 1793 – N. papers mention snow to the northward.  On this day Mrs Clement was brought to bed of a boy, her ninth child.  My nephews & nieces are now 61.
• 1792: January 9, 1792 – Snow-drops, & crocus’s shoot.
• 1789: January 6, 1789 – Thermr 25:18.  Fierce frost, sun, cutting wind.  Severe day.
• 1787: January 6, 1787 – Paths dry: boys play at taw on the Plestor.
• 1785: January 6, 1785 – No snipes in the moors of the forest, or on the streams.  No wood-cocks to be found this winter.
• 1782: January 6, 1782 – Wells now rise considerably.  Bees come out of their hives.  Gnats play about.
• 1781: January 6, 1781 – In the church-yard at Faringdon are two male-yew-trees, the largest of which measures 30 feet in girth.
• 1773: January 6, 1773 – Hard frost, warm sun, dark.  Great rime.
• 1769: January 6, 1769 – Hen chaffinches flock.
• 1768: January 6, 1768 – Coughs and colds are general.  Provisions freeze within.

• 1791: January 5, 1791 – The great oak in Harteley avenue, just as you enter the pasture-field, measures in girth 14 feet.  It is a noble tree, & if sound worth many pounds.  Why it was left at the general sale does not appear.  The girth was taken at four feet above the ground.
• 1789: January 5, 1789 – Turner’s well-diggers advance slowly through the blue rag. Mr Churton left us, & went to Waverly.
• 1786: January 5, 1786 – The fierce drifting of wednesday proved very injurious to houses, forcing the snow in to roofs, & flooding the ceilings.  The roads also are so blocked with drifting snow that the coaches cannot pass.  The Winton coach was overturned yesterday near Alresford.
• 1785: January 5, 1785 – Brother Thomas left us.
• 1772: January 5, 1772 – Hedge-sparrow whistles: paths get dry.  An extraordinary concussion in the air which shook peoples windows, & doors round the neighbourhood.  Note:  The concussion felt Jan. 5 was occasioned by the blowing-up of the powder-mills near Hounslow.  Incredible damage was done in that neighbourhood.

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Notes:

The explosions of the gunpowder mills at Hounslow inconvenienced no less a person than Horace Walpole, whose decorative glass windows were shattered. He wrote a droll letter to his cousin, Lieutenant General of the Ordnance:
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“You have read of my calamity without knowing it, and will pity me when you do. I have been blown up; my castle is blown up; Guy Fawkes has been about my house; and the fifth of november has fallen on the 6th [sic] of January! In short, nine thousand powder-mills broke loose yesterday morning on Hounslow-heath; … As lieutenant-general of the ordnance, I must beseech you to give strict orders that no more powder-mills may blow up… and would recommend to your consideration, whether it would not be prudent to have all magazines of powder kept under water till they are wanted for service. In the meantime, I expect a pension to make me amends for what I have suffered under the governments.”

and another to a Lady Ossory:

“Margaret [the housekeeper] sits by the waters of Babylon and weeps over Jerusalem. Yet she was not taken quite unprepared, for one of the Bantam hens had crowed on Sunday morning, and the chandler’s wife told her three weeks ago, when the Barn was blown down, that ill-luck never came single. She is, however, very thankful that the china-room has escaped, and says God has always been the best creature in the world to her.”

“Blue rag” is a limestone layer; see the general note for January 3.

Speckled Diver, T. Bewick.

• 1793: January 4, 1793 – Rain, rain, gleams.  Venus is very resplendent.
• 1789: January 4, 1789 – Began the new hay-rick. Snow on the ground; but the quantity little in comparison with what has fallen in most parts. As one of my neighbours was traversing Wolmer-forest from Bramshot across the moors, he found a large uncommon bird fluttering in the heath, but not wounded, which he brought home alive. On examination it proved to be Colymbus glacialis, Linn. the great speckled diver, or Loon, which is most excellently described in Willughby’s Ornithology. Every part & proportion of this bird is so incomparably adapted to it’s mode of life, that in no instance do we see the wisdom of God in the Creation to more advantage. The head is sharp, & smaller than the part of the neck adjoining, in order that it may pierce the water; the wings are placed forward & out of the center of gravity, for a purpose which shall be noticed hereafter; the thighs quite at the podex, in order to facilitate diving; & the legs are flat, & as sharp backwards almost as the edge of a knife, that in striking they may easily cut the water; while the feet are palmated, & broad for swimming, yet so folded up when advanced forward to take a fresh stroke, as to be full as narrow as the shank. The two exterior toes of the feet are longest; the nails flat & broad, resembling the human, which give strength & increase the power of swimming. The foot, when expanded is not at right angles to the leg or body of the bird; but the exterior part, inclining towards the head, forms an acute angle with the body. Most people know, that have observed at all, that the swimming of birds is nothing is nothing more than a walking in the water, where one foot succeeds the other as on the land; yet no one, as far as I am aware, has remarked that diving fowls, while under water, impell & row themselves forward by a motion of their wings, as well as by the impulse of their feet: but such is really the case, as any person may easily be convinced who will observe ducks when hunted by dogs in a clear pond. Nor do I know that any one has given a reason why the wings of diving fowls are placed so far forward. Doubtless not for the purpose of promoting their speed in flying, since that position certainly impedes it but probably for the encrease of their motion under water by the use of four oars instead of two; yet were the wings & feet nearer together, as in land birds, they would, when in action, rather hinder than assist one another. The Colymbus was of considerable bulk, weighting only three drachms short of three pounds averdupoise. It measured in length from the bill to the tail (which was very short) two feet; & to the extremities of the toes, […]
• 1786: January 4, 1786 – One of the most severe days that I ever remember with a S. wind.  The snow on wednesday [today] proved fatal to two or three people who were frozen to death on the open downs about Salisbury.  Much damage happened at sea about that time.  In particular the Halsewell outer-bound India-man was wercked, & lost on the shore of Purbeck.
• 1777: January 4, 1777 – Dark & thawing, frost, snow on the ground.  Larks congregate roads hard, & beaten.
• 1768: January 4, 1768 – The birds must suffer greatly as there are no Haws. Meat frozen so hard it can’t be spitted. Several of the thrush kind are frozen to death.

• 1790: January 3, 1790 – The spotted Bantam lays a second time.
• 1789: January 3, 1789 – Rime hangs on the trees all day.  Turner’s well-diggers have sunk his well about six feet.  It is now about on a level with mine, viz. about 63 feet deep.  They came to-day to a hard blue rag, & a little water.
• 1788: January 3, 1788 – A flood at Gracious street.
• 1787: January 3, 1787 – On this evening there was a total eclipse of the moon: but the sky was so cloudy, that we saw nothing of the progress of it.
• 1786: January 3, 1786 – Fierce frost.  On this day at 8 o’the clock in the evening Captain Lindsey’s hands were frozen, as he & Mr Powlett were returning from Captain Dumeresque’s to Rotherfield.  The Gent. suffered great pain all night, & found his nails turned black in the morning.  When he got to Rotherfield, he bathed his hands in cold water.  Snow on the ground six inches deep at an average.
• 1785: January 3, 1785 – 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.
• 1784: January 3, 1784 – Snow gone: flood at Gracious street.
• 1782: January 3, 1782 – Mezereon blows.  Viola tricolor, red lamium, & grounsel blow.  Hazel catkins open.
• 1781: January 3, 1781 – Some snow on the ground.  Vast halo round the moon.
• 1779: January 4, 1779 – Water frozen on my chamber-window.
• 1774: January 3, 1774 – Thermomr abroad 22 3/4.  At noon 30.  In ye wine vault 43 1/4.
• 1771: January 3, 1771 – Wood-lice, onisci aselli, appear all the winter in mild weather: spiders appear all the winter in moist weather; lepismae appear all the winter round hearths & in warm places.  Some kinds of gnats appear all the winter in mild weather, as do earth-worms, after it is dark, when there is no frost.
• 1768: January 3, 1768 – Horses are still falling with their general disorder.  It freezes under people’s beds.

Notes:

‘Lepsimae’ in the 1771 entry are silverfish. The ‘blue rag’ in the 1789 entry refers to a layer of blue limestone; as described in the NHoS: “Though the white stone will not bear wet, yet in every quarry at intervals there are thin strata of blue rag, which resist rain and frost; and are excellent for pitching of stables, paths, and courts, and for building of dry walls against banks, a valuable species of fencing, much in use in this village, and for mending of roads.” NHoS, letter IV.

Missel thrush, or storm cock, T. Bewick. The ‘storm cock’ so-called from its habit of singing in bad weather.

• 1783: January 2, 1783 – Vast hoar frost.  Frost comes within doors.
• 1780: January 2, 1780 – Vast condensations, & drippings from the trees.
• 1778: January 2, 1778 – There is reason to fear that the plasterer has done a mischief to the last coat of my battin-plaster that should carry the paper of my room by improvidently mixing wood-ashes with the morter; because the alcaline salts of the wood will be very long before they will be dry at all, & will be apt to relax & turn moist again when foggy damp weather returns.  If any ashes at all he should have used sea-coal, & not vegetable ashes; but a mixture of loam & horses dung would have been best.
• 1776: January 2, 1776 – Grey & white wagtails appear every day; they never leave us.
• 1775: January 2, 1775 – Grey, & white water-wagtails appear every day; they never leave us in the winter.
• 1772: January 2, 1772 – Frost, clouds, sprinkling, dark.
• 1770: January 2, 1770 – Grey, small rain.  Storm-cock, turdus viscivorus, sings.

Notes:

English History Online gives White as one of the few sources for the term “battin plaster”:

“In the context of the source it appears to have been a PLASTER intended for spreading on BATTENs as a wall surface, the final layer of which was intended to take the WALLPAPER [Diaries (White)]. [Inventories (1783)] gives some clues on the preparation for a wall to take plaster in an entry that lists 23 ‘battins under the laths and hair’.

Not found in the OED online

Sources: Diaries.”

Google books provides a page with a glimpse of historical plaster recipes, including ones involving ashes, loam, and horse dung.

English History Online is an enchanting and vast resource I’ve only just stumbled upon– amongst its panoply of treasures, lists of Debating Society topics that give a flavour of the age:

1175. January 11, 1787 Coach-Makers Hall Debating Society

‘Which is more blameable, the man who deliberately seduces a female, and then deserts her, or the father who abandons his daughter so seduced?’

The discussion of the Question contained ‘persuasive eloquence [which] was laudably employed in the cause of virtue. Several young speakers distinguished themselves on the occasion, proving their claims to the flattering plaudits they received from a very numerous, polite, and liberal auditory. A majority fixed the greater blame on the Parent.

The managers trust, that every Gentleman who enters this assembly, will perceive the propriety of submitting to the sense of the majority of it, remembering that true liberty is to act as we ought, and that decorum is the companion of good sense.

Upon these principles young speakers may rest assured of receiving the most encouraging indulgence, from that disinterested candour and liberality, which the audience at this society have ever manifested.’ Morning Herald