The Natural History of Selborne

Daws to the churches.

Snow, fog, sleet.  Icicles.  Snow on the hills.

Helleborus viridis, planted in my orchard from the stony-lane, begins to spring.  It rises from the earth with it’s flower-buds formed: & differs from Helleborus foetidus, that it dies down to the ground in the autumn, while that maintains a large handsome plant all winter.

Fog, rain, sun, grey.  Hedge sparrows sing vehemently.

Sowed the meadows with ashes.

Soft day.  Bunting sings.  A snipe appears on the high downs among the wheat.  Royston crow.  Skylark sings.

Ice in the roads bears horse & man.  Vast halo round the moon.  The landsprings in part of N. Tidworth street not fordable: they run like a vast river.

The sheep on the downs are very ragged & their coats much torn: the shepherds say they tear their fleeces with their own mouths, & horns: & that they are always in that way in mild wet winters, being teized & tickled with a kind of lice.

Wood-lark whistles.  Hogs carry straw.

Foul, stormy day.  Mezereon & groundsel blow.