The Natural History of Selborne

Apricots set very fast.  The willows in bloom are beautiful.  Men pole their hops: barley is sowing at the forest side.  Several swallows, h. martins, & bank-martins play over Oakhanger ponds.  The horses wade belly deep over those ponds, to crop the grass floating on the surface of the water.

The vines of John Stevens, which were trimmed late, not till March, bleed much; & will continue to do so until the leaf is fully expanded.  It is remarkable, that tho’ this is the case while the trees are leafless, yet lop them as much as you please when the foliage is out, they will not shed one drop.  Dr Hales was not acquainted with this circumstance when he cut-off a large bough of his vine at Teddington late in the spring; & it was lucky for science that he was not.  For his sollicitude for his vine, & his various attempts to stop the effusion of the sap, led him step by step to many expedients, which by degrees brought on the abundance of curious experiments, & ended in that learned publication known by the name of Vegetable Statics, a work which has done much honour to the Author, & has been translated into many modern languages.

Five gallons of french brandy from London.  Cucumbers show fruit in bloom.  Cuculus cuculat: the voice of the cuckoo is heard in Blackmoor woods.  Sowed hollyhocks, columbines, snapdragons, stocks, mignonette, all from S. Lambeth, in a bed in the garden: also sweet williams, & Cantebury bells.

Pulled down the old forsaken martin’s nests in some of which we found dead young.  They grow fetid, & foul from long use.  Redstart appears in my tall hedges.

White frost, sun.  Timothy the tortoise weighs 6 ae. 14 oz.   Dug several plots of garden ground & ground digs well.

Brimstone butter-fly.  The tortoise comes out.  Dog violets blow.  Summer-like.

Timothy the tortoise heaves up the sod under which he is buried.  Daffodil blows.

Wry-neck pipes.  The smallest uncrested wren chirps loudly, & sharply in the hanger.

Some wood-cocks are now found in Hartely-wood: as soon as the weather grows a little warm, they will pair, & leave us.

Rain in the night, spring-like.  Crocus’s make a gaudy show.  Some little snow under the hedges.