The Natural History of Selborne

Many creatures are endowed with a ready discernment to see what will turn to their own advantage & emolument; & will often discover more sagacity than could be expected.  Thus Benham’s poultry watch for waggons loaded with wheat, & running after them pick up a number of grains which are shaken from the sheaves by the agitation of the carriages.  Thus when my brother used to take down his gun to shoot sparrows, his cats would run out before him to be ready to pick up the birds as they fell.

Cherries turn colour, & begin to be eatable; but are small for want of moisture: are netted.  A cat gets down the pots of a neighbour’s chimney after the Swallows nests.

Made jellies, & jams of red currans.  Gathered broad beans.  Mushrooms begin to come in Mr Edmd White’s avenue, under the Scotch firs.  The cat gets upon the roof, & catches young bats as they come forth from behind the sheet of lead at the bottom of the chimney.

The hanger is beatifully tinged.  Leaves fall apace.  Dug up carrots.  Many flesh-flies: here & there a wasp.  The cat frolicks, & plays with the falling leaves.

Fierce frost. Rime hangs all day on the hanger.  The hares, press’d by hunger, haunt the gardens & devour the pinks, cabbages, parsley, &c.  Cats catch the red-breasts.  Timothy the tortoise sleeps in the fruit-border under the wall, covered with a hen-coop, in which is a good armfull of straw.  Here he will lie warm, secure, & dry.  His back is partly covered with mould.

Crickets in the chimney cry but faintly & do not appear much.  The cats kill all they can see.  *The severity of the weather quickened Timothy’s retreat: he used to stay above ground ’til about the 20th.  At Ringmer he used to lay himself up in a wet swampy border: indeed he had no choice.