The Natural History of Selborne

The torrent down the stoney-lane as you go towards Rood has run all the spring, summer, & autumn, joining Well-head stream at the bridge.

Lord Howe arrived at Portsmouth with 16 men of war.  He was absent just nine weeks.  If a frost happens, even when the ground is considerably dry, as soon as a thaw takes place, the paths & fields are all in a batter.  Country people say that the frost draws moisture.  But the true philosophy is, that the steam & vaours continually ascending from the earth, are bound-in by the frost, & not suffered to escape, ’till released by the thaw.  No wonder then that the surface is all in a float; since the quntity of moisture by evaporation that arises daily from every acre of ground is astonishing.  Dr Watson, by experiment, found it to be from 1600 to 1900 gallons in 12 hours, according to the degree of heat in the earth, & the quantity of rain new fallen.– See Watson’s Chem. essays: Vol. 3 p. 55. 56

Planted 50 tulips, which I bought of Dan Wheeler, in the border opposite to the great parlor-windows.  They are, I think, good flowers.

Men are interrupted in their wheat-sowing in the mornings by hard frost.

I watched the S.E. end of the hanger, hoping to see some house-martins, as they sometimes appear about this day but was disappointed.

Some flocks of starlings on the wide downs between Andover, & Winton. Several martins were playing about over the chalk-bank at the E. end of Whorwel village.  Can any one suppose but that they came out of the bank that morning to enjoy the warm sunshine, & would retire into it again before night?

Two of my brother Henry’s gold-fish have been sick, & cannot live with the rest in the glass-bowl but in a tin-bucket by themselves they soon become lively, & vigorous. They were perhaps too much crouded in the bowl. When a fish sickens it’s head gets lowest; so that by degrees it stands as it were ont it’s head; ’till getting weaker & losing all poise, the tail turns over; & at last it floats on the water with it’s belly uppermost. Gold & silver-fishes seem to want no aliment, but what they can collect from pure water frequently changed. They will eat crumbs, but do better without; because the water is soon corrupted by the pieced of bread, & turns sour. Tho’ they seem to take nothing, yet the consequences of eating frequently drop from them: so that they must find many animalcula, & other nourishment. With their pinnae pectorales they gently protrude themselves forward or backward: but it is with their strong muscular tails only that Fishes move with such inconceivable rapidity.

It has been said that the eyes of fishes are immoveable: but these apparently turn them forward or backward in their sockets as their occasions require. They take little notice of a lighted candle, though applied close to their heads, but flounce and seem much frightened by a sudden stroke of the hand against the support whereon the bowl is hung; especially when they have been motionless, and are perhaps asleep. As fishes have no eyelids, it is not easy to discern when they are sleeping or not, because their eyes are always open.

Nothing can be more amusing than a glass bowl containing such
fishes: the double refractions of the glass and water represent them, when moving, in a shifting and changeable variety of dimensions, shades, and colours; while the two mediums, assisted by the concavo-convex shape of the vessel, magnify and distort them vastly; not to mention that the introduction of another element and its inhabitants into our parlours engages the fancy in a very agreeable manner.

The gold & silver-fish lie sleeping all day in their silver-bowl towards the surface of the water: people that have attended to them suppose this circumstance prognostic of rain.  Jupiter & Saturn approach to each other very fast.

Grapes at this place eatable: the sort, black cluster, come from Selborne.

My brother’s children & plantations strangely grown in two years.  On the downs the green wheat looked very chearful & pleasant.  Some wheat & turnips covered with charlock in full bloom.  This proves, it seems, but a poor trufle-year at Fyfield; so they fail some times in very wet years, as well as in very dry ones.