The Natural History of Selborne

On the 6th of last October I saw many swallows hawking for flies around the Plestor, & a row of young ones, with square tails, sitting on a spar of the old ragged thatch of the empty house.  This morning Dr Chandler & I cause the roof to be examined, hoping to have found some of these birds in their winter retreat: but we did not meet with any success, tho’ Benham searched every hole & every breach in the decayed roof.

The air smells very sweet, & salubrious.  Men dig their hop-gardens, & sow spring-corn.  Cucumber plants show rudiments of fruit.  Planted cuttings of currans, & goose-berries.  Dug some of the quarters in the garden, & sowed onions, parsnips, radishes, & lettuces.  Planted more beans in the meadow.  Many flies are out basking in the sun.

Timothy Turner ashed a great part of Baker’s hill, & dunged one part.  Wag-tail on grass-plots.

The small willow-wren, or chif-chaf, is heard inthe short Lythe.  This is the earliest summer bird, & is heard usually about the 20th of March.  Tho’ one of the smallest of our birds, yet it’s two notes are very loud, & piercing, so as to occasion an echo in the hanging woods.  It loves to frequent tall beeches.

In the mid counties there was a prodigious snow; some people were lost in it, & perished.

Made a new hand-glass bed for celeri in the garden.  The crocus’s still look very gay when the sun shines.

White sharp frost: thick ice: icicles.  Apricots blow: peaches & nectarines begin to open their buds.  Some thing again eats the young celeri.

Snow does not lie, ice, frost, & icicles all day.

Snow, rain, harsh.  A sad wintry day!

This evening Admiral Gardner’s fleet sailed from St Helens with a fair wind.