The Natural History of Selborne

Mr. Chr. Etty has taken the young Cuckow, & put it in a cage, where the hedge-sparrows feed it.  No old Cuckow has been seen to come near it.  Mr CHarles Etty brought down with him from London in the coach his two finely-chequered tortoises, natives of the island of Madagascar, which appear to be Testudo geometrica, Linn., and the Testudo tessellat, Raii.  One of them was small, & probably a male, weighing about five pounds; the other , which was undoubtedly a female, because it layed an egg the day after it’s arrival, weighed ten pounds and a quarter.  The egg was round, & white, & much resembling in size & shape the egg of an owl.  Ray says of this species that the shell was “Ellipticae seu ovatae figurae solidae plus quam dimidia pars”: & again, “Ex omnibus quas unquam vidi maxime concava.” Ray’s quadrup: 260.  The head, neck, & legs of these were yellow.  These tortoises in the morning when put into the coach at Kensignton were brisk, & well; but the small one dyed the first night that they came to Selborne; & the other, two nights after, having received, as it should seem, some Injury on their Journey.  When the female was cleared of the contents of her body, a bunch of eggs of about 30 in number was found in her.

Phallus impudicus, a stink-pot, comes up in Mr Burbey’s asparagus-bed.  Received a Hogsh. of port-wine, imported at Southampton.

Papilio Machaon in Mrs Etty’s garden.  They are very rare in these parts.

Finished ripping, furring, & tiling the back part of my house; a great jobb.  Garden-beans come in.

My horses, which lie at grass, have had no water now for about 8 weeks: nor do they seem to desire any when they pass by a pond, or stream.  This method of management is particularly good for aged horses, especially if their wind is at all thick.  My horses look remarkably well.

The young cuckow gets fledge, & grows bigger than its nest.  It is very fierce, & pugnacious.

Gloomy & heavy.  Much hay housed.  Cool gale.  Pitch-darkness.

Vast damage done in various parts of the kingdom by thunder-storms & floods, from Yorkshire all across to Plymouth.

Timothy Turner cuts Baker’s hill, the crop of which he has bought.  It is St foin run to seed, the 17th crop.

On this day my Godson, Littleton Etty discovered a young Cuckow in one of the yew hedges of the vicarage garden, sitting in a small nest that would scarce contain the bird, tho’ not half grown. By watching in a morning we found that the owners of the nest were hedge-sparrows, who were much busied in feeding their great booby. The nest is in so secret a place that it is to be wondered how the parent Cuckow could discover it. Tho’ the bird is very young it is very fierce, gaping, & striking at peoples fingers, & heaving up by way of menace, & striving to intimidate those that approach it. This is now only the fourth young cuckow that I have ever seen in a nest: three of those h. sparrows, & one in that of a tit-lark. As I rose up the N. field-hill lane I saw young partridges, that were about two or three days old, skulking in the cart-ruts; while the dams ran hovering & crying up the horse-track, as if wounded, to draw off my attention.