The Natural History of Selborne

Bees resort to the hot-beds tempted by some honey spread on the leaves, & blossoms of the cucumbers.  When bees do not frequent the frames, the early fruit never sets well: therefore this expident is very proper for early melons, & cucumbers.

White frost, sun, dark clouds.

Birds eat ivy-berries, which now begin to ripen: they are of great service to the winged race at this season, since most other berries ripen in the autumn.  The shell-less snails, called slugs, are in motion all the winter in mild weather, & commit great depredations on garden-plants, & much injure the green wheat, the loss of which is imputed to earth-worms; while the shelled snail, does not come forth at all ’til about April the tenth; and not only lays itself up pretty early in the autumn, in places secure from frost; but also throws-out round the mouth of it’s shell a thick operculum formed from it’s own saliva; so that it is perfectly secured, & corked-up as it were, from all inclemencies.  Why the naked slug should be so much more able to endure cold than it’s housed congener, I cannot pretend to say.

Horse-ants retire under the ground.  Wheat-ears appear.

The creeper, a pretty little nimble bird, runs up the bodies & boughs of trees with all the agility of a mouse.  It runs also on the lower side of the arms of trees with it’s back downward.  Stays with us all the winter.

Planted a raspberry bed.

The apricot-bloom, which came out early , seems to be much cut by the late frosts.  Peaches & Nect. now in fine bloom.

Earthworms travel about in rainy nights, as appears from their sinuous tracks on the soft muddy soil, perhaps in search of food.

Snake appears: toad comes forth.  Frogs spawn.  Horse-ants come forth.

Mrs Snooke’s old tortoise came out of the ground, but in a few days buried himself as deeps as ever.  Earth-worms lie out, & copulate.