The Natural History of Selborne

Hornets settle on the mellow fruit among the honey-bees & carry them off.

Timothy eats heartily.

When we call loudly thro’ the speaking-trumpet to Timothy, he does not seem to regard the noise.

The Antirrhinum cymbalaria is grown to an enermous size, extending itself side-ways 15 or 16 feet, & 7 or 8 in height!!  It grows on the water-table of a N.W. wall of my house, & runs up among the shoots of a Jasmine.

Timothy still feeds a little.  Ophrys spiralis, Ladies-traces, blows pentifully in the long lithe, & on the common near the beechen-grove.

The motions of Timothy the tortoise are much circumscribed: he has taken to the border under the fruit-wall, & makes very short excursions: he sleeps under a Marvel of Peru.  Lapwings frequent the upland fallows.

My kindey-beans are much withered for want of rain: cucumbers bear: peaches begin to come: endives large, & tyed-up.  Gathered-in the Burgamot-pears; they easily part from their stems.  Hop-picking partly ended.  Myriads of flying ants, of the small pale, yellow sort, fly from their nests & fill the air.

Barley-harvest on the downs.

The trufle-man came & hunted my brother’s grove for the first time: but found only half a pound of trufles, & those shrivelled & decayed, for want of moisture.

The season is so dry that no trufle-hunter has yet tryed my brother’s grove.