The Natural History of Selborne

The sycamore or great maple, is in bloom, & at this season makes a beautiful appearance, & affords much pablum for the bees, smelling strongly like honey.  The foliage of this tree is very fine, & very ornamental to outlets.

Apis longicornis.  This bee appears, but does not bore nests in the ground yet.

Showers all day, with hail, & wind.  The ground is pretty well moistened.

Field crickets shrill.  Snipes in the forest.  The forest quite burnt-up.  Small reed-sparrow sings.  Young ring-doves fledge.  Hay is risen to four pounds per ton: no grass in the fields, & great distress among the cattle.

Some missle-thrushes on the down above us: blackbirds and thrushes mostly destroyed.

The grass still crips with white frost.  Tulips hang their heads in the morning, being pricked with the frost.

Birds silent for want of showers.  Acer majus in bloom.  The sycamore, when in bloom, affords great pabulum for the bees, & sends forth an honey-like smell.  All the maples have sccharine juices.

Pheasants crow.  Ring-doves coe.  Nect: & peaches swell.  Hops are poling.  The latest summer birds of passage generally retire the first: this is the case with the hirundo apis, the caprimulgus, & the stoparola.  Birds are never joyous in dry springs: showery seasons are their delight for obvious reasons.

The wolf-fly appears in windows, & pierces other flies with his rostrum: is of a yellow hue: an asilus of Linn.

Hot-beds never do so well in long dry fits of weather:  they do not ferment enough.  The hot dry weather hurries the flowers out of bloom.