The Natural History of Selborne

Farmer Lasham’s Dorsetshire ewes have produced several lambs.  Insects abound.  Wheat comes up well.

Much snow in the night.  Vast snow.  Snow 16 inches deep on my grass-plot about 12 inches at an average.  Farmer Hoar had 41 sheep buried in snow.  No such snow since Jan. 1776.  In some places much drifted.

What becomes of those massy clouds that often incumber the atmosphere in the day, & yet disappear in the evening.  Do they melt down into dew?  * Some of the store wethers on this down now prove fat, & weigh 15 pounds a quarter.  This incident never befals but in long dry seasons; & then the mutton has a delicate flavour.

Nuthatches rap about on the trees.  Crocuss begins to sprout.  The leaves of the medlar-tree are now turned of a bright yellow.  On of the first trees that becomes naked is the wall-nut: the mulberry, & the ash, especially if it bears many keys, and hte Horse-chestnut come next.  All lopped trees, while their heads are young, carry their leaves a long while.  Apple-trees & peaches remain green ’til very late, often ’til the end of Novr: young beeches never cast their leaves ’til spring, ’til the new leaves sprout & push them off: in the autumn the beechen-leaves turn of a deep chestnut color.  Tall beeches cast their leaves towards the end of Octr.  Magpies sometimes, I see, perch on the backs of sheep, & pick the lice & ticks out of their wool; nay, mount on their very heads; while those meek quadrupeds seem pleased, & stand perfectly still, little aware that their eyes are in no small danger; & that their assiduous friends would be glad of an opportunity of picking their bones.

The month of Oct. has been very dry: mill-ponds begin to want water.  Sheep frolick.

Gathered some keeping-apples.  The intercourse between tups and ewes seems pretty well over.  Ewes go, I think, 22 weeks.

Showers, rainbow, bright.  Barley in a sad condtion about Basingstoke.  Rams begin to pay court to the ewes.

A profusion of turneps probably all the kingdom over: on which account lean sheep are very dear.  Hops at present lie on hand: were carried to Weyhill, then to Andover: & now are bringing home again.  Snow gone except under hedges.  Birds do not seem to touch the berries of the tamus cummunis ‘tho they look very red, & inviting: the berries also of the bryonia alba seem not to be meddled with.  Perhaps they are too acrid.  There is a fine crop of clover of last spring: the frequent showers of last summer occasioned also a vast growth of grass.

Glass sinks very fast.  Sheep feed in the night.

Sweet day.  The sheep about Lewes are all without Horns: & have black faces & legs.  Sheep have horns & white faces again west of Bramber.