The Natural History of Selborne

Nightingales very jealous of their young: & make a jarring harsh noise if you approach them.

Spiraea filipendula, Valeriana offic:. Quail calls.  Young backward rooks just flown.  Young nightingales flown.  Mayflies abound on the Whorwel streams & are taken by hirundines.

Dark, & still.  Rain.

Bees frequent my chimneys: they certainly extract somewhat from the soot, the pitchy part, I suppose.

Variable winds, & clouds flying different ways.  Ricked the St foin, four jobbs.  Rather under made, but not at all damaged by the rain.  It was made in swarth, & lay 8 days.

* Most birds drink sipping a little at a time:  but pigeons take a long continued draught like quadrupeds.  Some swallows build down the mouths of the chalk draught-holes on Faringdon-common.  House-martins retire to rest pretty soon: they roost in their nest as soon as ever it is big enough to contain them.  Martins build the shell of a nest frequently, & then forsake it, & build a new one.

Fern-owl chatters in the hanger.

There seem to be more hirundines, particularly house-martins, & swifts, about Midhurst than with us.

Swifts stay out ’til within 10 minutes of 9.  Ivy-berries fallen-off.  Young grasshoppers.

House-martins gather moss, & grasses for their nests from the Roofs of houses.

Planted one of the ephrys nidus avis with a good root to it in my garden, under a shady hedge.  The shell of the martin’s nest begun May 16, is about half finished.