The Natural History of Selborne

At S. Lambeth

Blue mist.  Hay-making is general about Clapham & South Lambeth:  Bror. Benjamin  has eight acres of hay down, & making.

On this day there was a tempst of thunder & lightening at Lyndon in the County of Rutland, which was followed by a rain that lasted 24 hours.  The rain that fell was 1 in 40 h.

The gale rises, & falls with the sun. Levant weather.  Some house-martins at Stockwell-chappel.

Ice thick as a crown piece.  Potatoes much injured, & whole rows of kidney-beans killed:  nasturtiums killed.

The late severe winter, & spring seem to have destroyed most of the black snails.  Planted-out all the annuals in general down Baker’s hill, & in the garden.  The plants are strong, & vigorous, & the season very favourable; the earth is well moistened, & the weather warm, still, shady, & dripping.

Several halo’s & mock-suns this morning.  Wheat looks black, & gross.  Crickets sing much on the hearth this evening:  they feel the influence of moist air, & sing against rain.  As the great wall-nut tree has no foliage this year, we have hung the meat-safe on Miss White’s Sycomore, which she planted a nut;  where it will be much in the air, & be well sheltered from the sun by leaves.

Much damage done to the corn, grass & hops by the hail; & many windows broken! Vast flood at Gracious street! vast flood at Kaker bridge! Nipped-off all the rose-buds on the tree in the yard opposite the parlor window in order to make a bloom in the autumn. No bloom succeeded.

Soft rain all days.  Snails come forth in troops.  Mr. Beeke came from Oxford.

Tulips are faded. Honey-suckles still in beauty. My columbines are very beautiful: tyed some of the stems with pieces of worsted, to mark them for seed. Planted-out pots of green cucumbers. Dr Derham says, that all cold summers are wet summers: & the reason he gives is that rain is the effect and not the cause of cold. But with all due deference to that great Philosopher, I think, he should rather have said, that most cold summers are dry; For it is certain that sometimes cold summers are dry; as for example, this very summer hitherto: & in the summer 1765 the weather was very dry, & very cool. See Physico-theol: p: 22. Vast honey-dews this week. The reason of these seems to be, that in hot days the effluvia of flowers are drawn-up by a brisk evaporation; and then in the night fall down with the dews, with which they are entangled. This very clammy substance is very grateful to bees, who gather it with great assiduity, but it is injurious to the trees on which it happens to fall, by stopping the pores of the leaves. The greatest quantity falls in still, close weather; beacuse winds disperse it, & copious dews dilute it, & prevent its ill effects. It falls mostly in hazey warm weather.

Turned mould for future hot-bed. Showers about. Great rain at Farnham, Froil &c. Rain at London.