The Natural History of Selborne

The prospect at Newton was most lovely; as usually is the case after much rain etc.

Vast rains!  91.

The earth is glutted with water.

Apricots shew hardly any bloom: they exhausted themselves with bearing last year.  Peaches & nect: abound with blossoms just opening; as do the new, trained trees planted last Novr.

Poor Timothy was flooded in his hybernaculum amidst the laurel-hedge; & might have been drowned, had not his friend Thomas come to his assistance & taken him away.

A farmer tells me he foresaw this extraordinary weather by the prognostic deportment of his flock; which, when turned-out on a down two or three mornings ago, gamboled & frolicked about like so many lambs.

Vast flocks of Fieldfares appear: they are probably intent on the business of migration.

The wheat-ear is seen on our down.

Cleaned-up the alleys, & borders of the k. garden.

Frost, ice, small flights of snow.  Peaches, & Nect. forwarder in bloom than apricots.