The Natural History of Selborne

Pines begin to ripen at Hartley.  I have not seen the great species of bat this summer.

* Teals breed in Woolmer-forest: jack-snipes breed there also  no doubt, since they are to be found there the summer thro’.  A person assures me, that Mr Meymot, an old clergyman at North cappel in Sussex, kept a cuckow in a cage three or four years; & that he had seen it several times, both winter and summer.  It made a little jarring noise, but never cryed ‘cuckow’: It might perhaps have been a hen.  He did not remember how it subsided.

Hay makes at a vast rate.  Vast crops of plums, currants, & gooseberries.  House-martin which laid in an old nest, hatches.  House-martins, which breed in an old nest get the start of those that build in new ones by 10 days, or a fortnight.

Meadow-grass very short indeed.

Tremendous thunder, & vast hail yesterday at Bramshot, & Hedley with prodigious floods.  Vast damage done.  The hail lay knee-deep.  The shell-snail has hardly appeared at all this season on account of the long dry time.  Snails copulate about Midsumr; & soon after deposit their eggs in the mould by running their heads & bodies under ground.  Hence the way to be rid of them is to kill as many as possible before they begin to breed.  In six weeks after wheat is in ear, harvest usually begins; unless delayed by cold, wet, black weather.

We just had the skirts of a vast thunder-storm.

Grass on the common burnt very brown.  Tulips decay.  No dews for mowing in common.

No thoro’ rain in this district since the 9, 10, & 11 of March.  The small ponds in the vales are now all dryed up, while the small ponds on the very tops of hills are but little affected.  can this difference be accounted-for from evaporation alone, which certainly is most prevalent in bottoms: or rather have not these elevated pools some unnoticed recruits by condensation, or some other secret means in the night time, so as to draw supplies to themselves from dews & mists, especially where trees over-hang?  Without a constant supply the cattle alone must soon drink them.  It must be allowed that in these parts the upland ponds have the most clayey, & holding bottoms: yet this advantage alone can never occasion the difference, the circumstance of cattle being considered.

We are obliged to water the garden continually.  Some wells dry.

Thrushes now, during this long drought, for want of worms hunt-out shell-snails, & pick them to pieces for their young.  My horses begin to lie abroad.

Dutch-honeysuckles in high bloom.