The Natural History of Selborne

The late frost cut-down the fern, & scorched many trees.  Wheat spindles for ear.

Mr. Pink is obliged to leave 26 acres of barley-ground unsown. Feverish colds begin to be very freqent in this neighbourhood, & indeed the country over. Within the bills of mortality this disorder is quite epidemic, so that hardly an individual escapes. This complaint seems to have originated in Russia, & to have extended all over Europe. The great inclemency of the spring may best account for this universal malady.

Tulips are gone.  The heat injures the flowers in bloom.  St foin in full bloom.  Fly-catcher has five eggs.

Grass-walks burn very much.  Ground chops.  Roses begin to blow.  Wheat spindles for ear.

Distant clouds, sultry, thunder-clouds.  Sulphurous smell in the air.  Sweet, even, small shower.  Strawberries blow well.  Medlar shows much bloom.  Honey-suckles blow.  Fern-owl chatter: chur-worm jars.  The tortoise shuns the intense heat by covering itself with dead grass; & does not eat ’til the afternoon.  Terrible storms in the Oxfordshire, & my Wilts.

Master Etty went on board the Vansittart India-man at Spithead.  Thunderstorm in the night with a fine shower.

The tortoise shunned the heat, it was so intense.

The ground chops & bakes very hard.

Clouds flye different ways. Distant thunder.

Soft rain.  Grass & corn improved by the rain already.  The long-horned bees bore their holes in the walks.