The Natural History of Selborne

Wheat-harvest pretty general.  Dark heavy clouds to the N.W. Heat unusually severe all this week!  This storm did great damage in & about London.

Great thunder, & lightening.

Most sultry night.

Hops have been some time in bloom, & do not promise for much of a crop: they are lousy and do not run up the poles well.

The flight of the scarabaeus solstitiales seems to be over.  Measles still in some families.

The male & femal ants of the little dusky sort come forth by myriads, & course about with great agility.

Apis manicata.  This bee is never observed by me ’til the Stachys germanica blows, on which it feeds all day: tho’ doubtless it had other plants to feed on before I introduced that Stachys.

Turneps thrive at a vast rate; a fine crop.  A prospect of much after-grass.

The lightening beat down a chimney on the Barnet: no person was hurt.  Measles still about.

* Thro’ this month the Caprimulgi are busy every evening in catching the solstitial chafers which abound on chalky soils on the tops of hills.  These birds certainly do, as I suspected last year, take these insects with their feet, & pick them to pieces as they flie along, & so pouch them for their young.  Any person that has a quick eye may see them bend their heads downwards, & push out their short feet forwards as they pull their prey to pieces.  The chafer may also be discerned in their claws.  The serrated claw threfore on their longest toe is no doubt for the purpose of holding their prey.  This is the only insectivorous bird that I know which takes it’s prety flying with it’s feet.

Some wheat seems to be blighted.