The Natural History of Selborne

Planted out some slips of red pinks: & set some rows of Tulips.

Timothy, who is placed under a hen-coop near the fruit-wall, scarce moves at all.

Leaves fall very fast.  My hedges shew beautiful lights, & shades: the yellow of the tall maples makes a fine contrast against the green hazels.

Men put their hogs up a fatting.  Timothy the tortoise, who in May last, after fasting all the winter, weighed only 6 pds. & four ounces: & in Aug. when full feed weighed 6 pds. & 15 ounces: weighs now 6 pds. 9 oun. & 1/2: & so he did last Oct. at Ringmer.  Thus his weight fluctuates, according as he fasts or abstains.

Bees begin gathering honey on the bloom of the crocus’s, & finish with the blooms of the ivy.

Planted two rows of small lettuces under the fruit-wall to stand the winter: the ground works very fine.  The rows reach the whole length of the wall.

No beech-mast; many acorns.  Many wall-nuts.  My great tree produced, when measured in their husks, eight bushels

Jet-ants still in motion.

Grapes improve in the morning.

The cause, occasion, call it what you will, of fairy-rings, subsists in the turf, & is conveyable with it: for the turf of my garden-walks, brought from the down above, abounds with those appearances, which vary their shape, & shift situation now in segments, & sometimes in irregular patches, the seeds of which were doubtless also brought in the turf.  Hunter’s moon.  Much lightening, & thunder.  This storm did much damage at Hammersmith, Putney, Wandsworth, &c. in the Isle of Wight, & at Plymouth, &c. &c.  This stomr did great damage in the isl of Wight, Lancashire, & at Torbay where our fleet of observation lay, & over on the coast of France near Brest: & was part of the hurricane which occasioned such horrible devastations in the W. Indies.