The Natural History of Selborne

The swallows seem to be distressed for food this cold wet weather, & to hawk up & down the street among the houses for flies with great earnestness.  Some of my rasps bear twice in the year, & gave now ripe fruit: these berries the partridges have found out, & have eaten most of them.  Thomas sprung two brace & a half among the bushes this morning.  These birds were hatched in Baker’s hill.  A flood last week at Hedleigh mill. The miller at Hawkley has long been distressed for want of water.  Spinage very fine.  Herrings are brought to the door.

Gathered many of the baking pears to disburthen the boughs, & keep them from breaking.

The gale snapped-off a large bough from my Cadillac pear-tree, which is heavily laden with fruit. 

Gathered-in my golden pippins, a small quantity.  Mr Churton came from Cheshire.

Nep. Ben & Wife, & nurse & baby left us, & went to Newton.

On the brow of the cliff that looks down on Candover’s farm-house my Brother found a lime-tree which had been cut down to a stool, when the coppice was cut formerly.  Was it a wild tree or planted?

Vast showers about.  Were all wet thro’ in our return from Faringdon.  Under the eaves of an house at Faringdon are 22 martin’s nests, 12 of which contain second broods now nearly fledge: they put out their heads, & seem to long to be on the wing.

J. Hale’s crop of hops under the S. corner of the hanger is prodigious: many hills together produce a bushel each, some two, & some three!  Mr White of Newton cuts some Saint foin a second time.  Nep. Ben came from London.  Barley, & seed-clover are housed.

A sand-piper shot at Hawkley.

A bat comes out many times in a day, even in sunshine to catch flies: it is probably a female that has young, & is hungry from giving suck: the swallows strike at the bat.