The Natural History of Selborne

The Poet of Nature lets few rural incidents escape him. In his Summer he mentions the whetting of a scythe as a pleasing circumstance, not from the real sound, which is harsh, grating, & unmusical; but from the train of summer ideas which it raises in the imagination. No one who loves his garden & lawn but rejoices to hear the sound of the mower on an early, dewy morning.–

“Echo no more returns the chearful sound
Of sharpening scythe.”

Milton also, as a pleasing summer-morning occurrence, says,

…”the mower whets his scythe.”

– L’Allegro

There is a natural occurance to be met with upon the highest part of our down on hot summer days, which always amuses me much, without giving me any satisfaction with respect to the cause of it; & that is a loud audible humming of bees in the air, tho’ not one insect is to be seen. This sound is to be heard distinctly the whole common through, from the Money-dells, to Mr White’s avenue-gate. Any person would suppose that a large swarm of bees was in motion, & playing about over his head. This noise was heard last week on June 28th.

“Resounds the lving surface of the ground,
Nor undelightful is the ceasless hum
To him who muses… at noon.”
“Thick in yon stream of light a thousand was,
Upward, and downward, thwarting, & convolv’d,
The quivering nations sport.”

Thomson’s Seasons

Hop-picking goes on without the least interruption. Stone-curlews cry late in the evenings.  The congregating flocks of hirundines on the church & tower are very beautiful, & amusing!  When they fly-off altogether from the Roof, on any alarm, they quite swarm in the air.  But they soon settle in heaps, & preening their feathers, & lifting up their wings to admit the sun, seem highly to enjoy the warm situation.  Thus they spend the heat of the day, preparing for their emigration, &, as it were consulting when & where they are to go.  The flight about the church seems to consist chiefly of house-martins, about 400 in number: but there are other places of rendezvous about the village frequented at the same time.  The swallows seem to delight more in holding their assemblies on trees. 

“When Autumn scatters his departing gleams,/
Warn’d of appraching winter gathered play/
The swallow people; & toss’d wide around/
O’er the calm sky in convulsion swift,/
The feather’d eddy floats: rejoicing once/
Ere to their wintry slumbers they retire,/
In clusters clung beneath the mouldring bank,/
And where, unpierced by frost, the cavern sweats./
Or rather to warmer climes convey’d,/
With other kindred birds of season, there/
They twitter chearful, till the vernal months/
Invite them welcome back:– for thronging now/
Innumberable wings are in commotion all.”

Scarlet-straw-berries good. A small praecox melon. The longest day:

“The longest daye in time resignes to nighte;
The greatest oke in time to duste doth turne;
The Raven dies; the Egle failes of flighte;
The Phoenix rare in time herselfe doth burne;
The princelie stagge at lenghte his race doth ronne;
And all must ende that ever was begonne.”

Geffrey Whitney’s Emblemmes; p. 230, 1586

One of my neighbours, shot a ring-dove on an evening as it was returning from feed, & going to roost. When his wife had picked & drawn it, she found its craw stuffed with the most nice & tender tops of turnips. These she washed & boiled, & so sate down to a choice & delicate plated of greens, culled & provided in this extraordinary manner. Hence we may see that granivourous birds, when grain fails, can subsist on the leaves of vegetables. There is reason to suppose that they would not long be healthy without; for turkies, tho’ corn fed, delight in a variety of plants, such as cabbage, lettuce, endive, &c., & poultry pick much grass while gees live for months together on commons by grazing alone.

“Nought is useless made;…/
… On the barren heath/
The shepherd tends his flock, that daily crop/
Their verdant dinner from the mossy turf/
Sufficient: after them the cackling Goose/
Close-grazer, finds wherwith to ease her want.”
Philips’s Cyder

Vast quntities of gossamer: the fields are covered with it: “slow thro’ the air/The gossamer-floats; or stretch’d from blade to blade/ The wavy net-work whitens all the fields.”

Fyfield, the spaniel, rejects the bones of a wood-cock with horror.  Gathered in the non-pareils.  The prodigious crop of apples this year verified in some measure the words of Virgil made use of in the description of the Corycian garden;

“Quotq’ in flore novo pomis se fertilis arbos/Induerat, totidem in autumno matura tenebat.”

The fields are now finely diversfyed with ripe corn, hay & harvest scenes, & hops. The whole country round is a charming land-scape,& puts me in mind of the following lovely lines in the first book of the Cyder of John Phillips.

“Nor are the hills unamiable, whose tops/
To heaven aspire, affording prospect sweet/
To human ken; nor at their feet the vales/
Descending gently, where the lowing herd/
Chews verdurous pasture; nor the yellow fields/
Gaily interchang’d, with rich variety/
Pleasing; as when an Emerald green enchas’d/
In flamy gold, from the bright mass acquires/
A nobler hue, more delicate to sight.”

Codlins came in for stewing. Wasps encrease & gnaw the cherries. Hung bottles to take the wasps.
“Contemplator item, cum se Nux plurima silvis
Induet in florem, & ramos curvabit olentis:
Si superant foetus, pariter frumenta sequenterur;
Magnaque cum mango veniet tritura calore.”*
If by Nux in this passage Virgil meant the Wall-nut, then it must follow, that he must also mean that a good wall-nut year usually proves a good year for wheat. This remark is verifyed in a remarkable manner this summer with us; for the wallnut trees are loaded with a myriad of nuts, which hang in vast clusters; & the crop of wheat is such as has not been known for many seasons. The last line seems also to imply, that this coincident, even in Italy, does not befall but only in a dry, sultry summer. Tho’ wall-nut-trees in England blow long before wheat; yet it is probable that in Italy, where wheat is more early than with us, they may blossom together. And indeed unless these vegetables had accorded in the time of their bloom, the Poet would scarce have introduced together as an instance of concomitant fertility.

Colchicum blows.

Say what retards, amidst the summer’s blaze/ Th’autumnal bulb, ’till pale, declining days?