The Natural History of Selborne

Vast rain with stormy wind, this storm damaged my trees, & hedges.  This storm occasioned much damage at sea, & in the river thames.

Turkies get up on the boughs of oaks in pursuit of acorns.

Mr Barker writes word that in Sep. last there fell in the county of Rutland near six inch. & 1/2 of rain.  The beeches on the hanger, & the maples in my fields are now beautifully tinged, & afford a lovely picturesque scape, very engaging to the imagination.

Many people sow wheat: the ground works well.

Hops were a drug at Wey-hill-fair: unusual quantities of were exposed for sale.

Lowered the flower-bank in the garden, & laid it on a gentle slope, & filled it with flowers of various sorts.

Woodcock killed this day.

Woodcock returns.

Just before it was dark a flight of about 12 swallows darted along over my House towards the hill: they seemed as if they settled in the hanger.  Now several house-martins appear about the hanger.

* An oak in Newton-lane near the Cross, by the condensation of the fogs on it’s leaves  has dripped such quantities for some nights past, that the water stands in puddles, & runs down the ruts.  Why this tree should drip so much more than it’s neighbours is not easy to say.  No doubt this is one of the means by which small upland ponds are still supported with water in the longest droughts; & the reason why they are never dry.  What methods of supply upland ponds enjoy, where no trees over-hang, may not be so easy to determine.  Perhaps their cool surfaces may attract a fund from the air when it is loaded with fogs & vapors, especially in the night-time.  That they have some never-failing stock at hand to counterbalance evaporation & the waste by cattle, is notorious to the meanest observer.  For on the chalks no springs are ever seen on the tops or sides of hills, but in the bottoms alone.

Here & there a straggling swallow.  Curlews clamor.