The Natural History of Selborne

Sowed a crop of spinage for the winter, and spring, & trod the seed well in.

My pendent pantry, made of deal & fine fly-wire, & suspended in the great wallnut tree, proves an incomparable preservative rfor meat against flesh-flies.  The flesh by hanging in a brisk current of air becomes dry on the surface, & keeps ’til it is tender without tainting.

Several broods of blackbirds & thrushes devour the currans, &c.: ’til the wild cherries are eaten they do not annoy the garden.

Papilio Machaon alis caudatis, concoloribus, flavis, limbo fusco, lunulis flavis, angulo ani fulvo, appears in my garden, being the first specimen of this species that I ever saw in this district.  In Essex & Sussex they are more common.  A person brought me a young snipe from the forest.

Much latter-grass in delicate order.  Wheat turns very fast.  Old wheat rises in price.

Dined at Bramshot.  Turnips flourish on the sands.  Mr Richardon’s garden at Bramshot-place abounds with fruit.

Young snipes were seen at the Bishop of Winchester’s table at Farnham-castle on this day: they are bred on all the moory-heaths of this neighbourhood.

Vast crops of cow-grass. Much hay made. Vast lights in the air from all quarters.  Crickets swarm in my kitchen-chimney.

*  The flies, called by our people Nose flies, torment the horses at plow.  They lay their eggs in the ears as well as the noses of cattle.  Some of our farmer’s work their teams with little baskets tyed-on over the horses noses.  These flies seem to prevail only in Italy.  Round the eaves of the Priory farmhouse are 40 martins-nests, which have sent forth their first brood in swarms, At 4 young to a nest only, the first brood will produce 160; & the second the same, which together make 320: add to these the 40 pairs of old ones, which make in all 400; a vast flight for one house!! The first, when congregating on the tiles, covers one side of the roof!

Tortoise eats gooseberries.

Vast fog at sea, over the Sussex-downs.