The Natural History of Selborne

Ophrys spiralis, ladies traces, in bloom the long Lythe, & on top of the short Lythe.  Wasps seize on butter-flies, &, shearing off their wings, carry their bodies home as food for their young: they prey much on flies.

Linnets congregate & therefore have probably done breeding.  Saw a Papilio Machaon in my garden: this is only the third of this species that ever I have seen in this district.  It was alert, & wild.  It is the only swallow-tailed fly in this island.

Tho’ white butterflies abound, & lay many eggs on the cabbages; yet thro’ over-heat, & want of moisture, they do not hatch and turn to palmers; but dry & shrivel to nothing.  One swift still frequents the eaves of the church; & moreover has, I discover, two young nearly fledged, which show their white chins at the mouth of the crevice.  This incident of so late a brood of swifts is an exception to the whole of my observations ever since I have bestowed any attention on that species of hirundines!

The Papilio Machaon never appeared but once in my garden.

Papilio Machaon alis caudatis, concoloribus, flavis, limbo fusco, lunulis flavis, angulo ani fulvo, appears in my garden, being the first specimen of this species that I ever saw in this district.  In Essex & Sussex they are more common.  A person brought me a young snipe from the forest.

White butter-flies settle on wet mud in crowds.  *No swift seen after August 14: so punctual are they in their migrations, or retreat!  The latest swift I ever saw was only once on Aug. 21, but they often withdraw by the 10.

Many phalanae appear.  Strange that these nocturnal lepidoptera should be so alert, at a season when no day papilios appear, but have long been laid-up for the winter.  Trees will not subsist in sharp currents of air: thus after I had opened a vista in the hedge at the E. corner of Baker’s hill, no tree that I could plant would grow in that corner: & since  I have opened a view from the bottom of the same field into the mead, the ash that grew in the hedge, & now stands naked on the bastion, is dying by inches, & losing all it’s boughs.  Phalaene appear about hedges in the night time the winter thro’.

Woodcock returns.  Papiliones and muscae abound on the asters.  Redwings return.

Papilio Atalanta abounds.

Papilio Machaon is found here in May.