The Natural History of Selborne

Hop-women complain of the cold.

Began to light fires in the parlor.  J.W. left us.

Some neighbours finish their hops.  The whole air of the village of an evening is perfumed by effluvia from the hops drying in the kilns.  Began to light a fire in the parlor.

Began to light fires in the parlors.  Some young martins in a nest at the end of the brew-house.  Small uncrested wrens, chif-chaffs, are seen in the garden.

Thermr 20, 23, 17.  Many have been disordered with bad colds & fevers at Oxford.  The water in the apparatus for making mineral water froze in the red room.  The wind is so piercing that the labourers cannot stand to their work.  Ice in all the chambers.  The perforated stopple belonging to the apparatus broke in two by the frost.  Apples preserved with Potatoes & carrots in the cellar.  Shallow snow covers the ground, enough to shelter the wheat.

The late hard winters killed the extreamities of my wall-nut trees, so that they have borne no fruit since: but the same severe seasons killed many of the fyfield wall-nut trees down to the ground.

My apples, pears, & potatoes secured in the cellar, & kitchen-closet; my meat in the cellar.  Severe frost, & deep snow.  Several men, that were much abroad, made sick by the cold; their hands, & feet were frozen.  We hung-out two thermometers, one made by Dollond, & one by B: Martin: the latter was graduated only to 4 below ten, or 6 degrees short of zero: so that when the cold became intense, & our remarks interesting, the mercury went all into the ball, & the instrument was of no service.

Extreme frost!!!  yet still bright sun.  At 11 one degree below zero.  On the 9th and 10th of Decr when my Thermr was down at 0, or zero; & 1 degree below zero: Mr Yalden’s Thermr at Newton was at 12, & 22.  On Dec, 24, when my Thermr was at 10 1/2 that at Newton was at 22, & 19.  At Newton, when hung side by side, these two instruments accorded exactly.  Thomas Hoar shook the snow carefully off the evergreens.  The snow fell for 24 hours, without ceasing.  The ice in one night in Gracious street full four inches!  Bread, cheese, meat, potatoes, apples all frozen where not secured in cellars under ground.

Mr. Etty’s well is still foul.  Began to light fires in the parlor.  Brother Thomas, & Molly White came.

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.