The Natural History of Selborne

Hay sold at Weyhill fair much cheaper than people expected: from £6-10-0 to £7-10-0.

Fine day, clouds & wind at night.

Storm that broke the boughs from the hedges.  Many swallows & martins.  Much barley & vetches abroad.  The housed & ricked barley in wet condition; it heats much.

Many martins appear again. Mr Yalden’s barley abroad: it has large corn & full of clover.  * The breed of partridges was good this year: pheasants are very scarce; hardly any eyes to be found.  We abound usually in pheasants.  In some counties pheasants are so scarce that the Gent. have agreed to refrain from killing any.  Rains ever since the first of Sepr.

Rooks frequent wallnut trees, & carry off the fruit.

Wasps cease to appear. Swallows & martins seem to be gone.

Vetches & pease are mostly spoiled.  Martins.  Mr Yalden has 10 acres of barley abroad.

Grey, dark showers, dry & windy.  Glass falls at a vast rate.

Swallows do not resort to chimnies for some time before they retire.  Titlarks abound on the common.  Martins are the shortest-winged & least agile of all the swallow-tribe.  They take their prey in a middle region, not so high as the swifts: nor do they usually sweep the ground so low as the swallows.  Breed the latest of all the swallow genus: last year they had young nestlings on to the 21 of Octr.  They usually stay later than their congeners.  Lat year 20 or 30 were playing all day long by the side of the hanger, & over my fields on Novr. 3rd.  After that they were seen no more.

Some barley abroad that has been cut a month.  Earwigs cast their skins & come forth white.  10 or 12 ring-ouzels appear on their autumn migration round Noar hill.  Martins are seldom seen at any distance from  neighbourhoods.  They feed over waters or under the shelter of an hanging wood.  Swallows often hawk about on naked downs & fields, even in very windy seasons at a great distance from houses.