The Natural History of Selborne

Larby now digs & double trenches a weedy spot in the great meadow.  The ground is black, & mellow, & fit for carrots, for which it is intended.

Trenched some ground in the meadow for carrots.

George Tanner’s bullfinch, a cock bird of this year, began from it’s first moulting to look dingy; & is now quite black on the back, rump, & all; & very dusky on the breast.  This bird has lived chiefly on hemp-seed.  But T. Dewey’s, & __ Horley’s two bull-finches, both of the same age with the former, & also of the same sex, retain their natural colours, which are glossy & vivid, tho’ they both have been supported by hemp-seed.  Hence the notion that hemp seed blackens bull-finches does not hold good in all instances; or at least not in the first year.

The weather was dark, still, & foggy all the time that I was absent, & the wind mostly N.E. & E.

This month proved a very wet one, more so than any month since Decemr 1779: in which fell 6 in. 28, in this 6. 18.

Began to use some of the advertised Celeri, which, I think, is crisper & finer flavoured than any sort that I have met with.

The planet Venus now is visible at Selborne over the hanger.  Planted against the fruit-wall, three well-trained trees that are to begin to bear fruit next year: viz: 1 Peterboro’ nectarine N.E. end.  1 mantaban peach.  1 red Magdalen peach, against the scullery.  1 Elrouge Nectarine.  These trees came from Mr Shiell’s nursery at Lambeth & cost 7s. 6d. on the spot.  They have healthy wood, & well-trained heads.  Planted a Virginian creeper against the wall of my house next the garden.

Fog, wh. frost.  As the fog cleared away, the warm sun occasioned a prodigious reek, or steam to arise from the thatched roofs.  in the evening picturesque partial fogs come rolling-in up the Lithe from the forest.

Cascades fall from the fields into the hollow lanes.

Finished dressing the vines.  The new wood was small, & not highly ripened; so it was laid-in the shorter.  It covers the walls regularly.