Posted by sydney on Oct 29th, 2008
- 1792: October 29, 1792 – Finished piling my wood: housed the bavins; fallows very wet.
- 1791: October 29, 1791 – The young martins remain.
- 1790: October 29, 1790 – Dug & cleansed the border in the orchard, & planted it with polyanths slipped-out.
- 1788: October 29, 1788 – Meridian line & dial accord well.
- 1787: October 29, 1787 – About four o’clock this afternoon a flight of house-martins appeared suddenly over my house, & continued feeding for half an hour & then withdrew. Some thought that there were swallows among them.
- 1785: October 29, 1785 – Snow lies on the hay-cocks in Baker’s hill!
- 1784: October 29, 1784 – Foliage turns very dusky: the colour of the woods & hangers appears very strange, & what men, not acquainted with the country, would call very unnatural.
- 1783: October 29, 1783 – Tortoise begins to bury himself in the laurel-hedge.
- 1781: October 29, 1781 – From the scantiness of the grass I have given for sometime 9 d pr pd. for butter; a price here not know before.
- 1780: October 29, 1780 – Men put their hogs up a fatting. Timothy the tortoise, who in May last, after fasting all the winter, weighed only 6 pds. & four ounces: & in Aug. when full feed weighed 6 pds. & 15 ounces: weighs now 6 pds. 9 oun. & 1/2: & so he did last Oct. at Ringmer. Thus his weight fluctuates, according as he fasts or abstains.
- 1778: October 29, 1778 – The bat is out. Beetles hum.
- 1776: October 29, 1776 – Grey crows return. These are winter birds of passage, & are never seen with us in the summer. The flocks are feeding down the green wheat on the downs, which is very forward, & matted on the ground. They sow wheat on the downs sometimes as soon as the end of July provided the season is not showery.
- 1775: October 29, 1775 – Redwings on the hawthorns. Bat appears.
- 1772: October 29, 1772 – Vast quantities of rain has fallen lately.
- 1770: October 29, 1770 – Trees carry their leaves well for the season.
- 1769: October 29, 1769 – North lights every evening. Six martins appeared flying under ye hanger. Thunder & lightening with vast rain.
- 1768: October 29, 1768 – Grapes are very good, but decay apace.
Posted by sydney on Oct 28th, 2008
- 1792: October 28, 1792 – Thomas saw a polecat run across the garden.
- 1791: October 28, 1791 – There are now apparently three young martins in the nest nearly fledged.
- 1790: October 28, 1790 – Wet & uncomfortable.
- 1789: October 28, 1789 – The young men of this place found a stray fallow deer at the back of the village, which they roused, & hunted with grey hounds, & other dogs. When taken it proved to be a buck of three years old.
- 1787: October 28, 1787 – Sam White saw three swallows at Oxford near Folly bridge.
- 1785: October 28, 1785 – Saw seven ring-ouzels on the old hawthorns at Clay’s barn. Part of the hay in Baker’s-hill was cocked & housed: it smells well, & is not so much damaged as might have been expected.
- 1784: October 28, 1784 – Mr John Mulso came.
- 1783: October 28, 1783 – Planted many slips of pinks.
- 1781: October 28, 1781 – The planet Venus, which became an evening star in June, but was not visible ’til lately, now makes a resplendent appearance. On Selborne down are many oblong tumuli, some what resembling graves but larger, supposed by the country people to be the earth of saw-pits. But as they mostly lie one way from S.E. to N.W. & are many of them very near to each other, it is most probably that they were occasioned by some purpose of a different kind. My bro. Tho. ordered two to be dug across; one of which produced nothing extra-ordinary; while in the other was found a blackish substance: but how, & in what quantity it lay, & whether it consisted of ashes & cinders, or of humus animalis, we had no opportunity to examine from the precipitancy of the labourer, who filled up the trench he had opened without giving proper notice of the occurence.
- 1780: October 28, 1780 – Bees begin gathering honey on the bloom of the crocus’s, & finish with the blooms of the ivy.
- 1779: October 28, 1779 – Sheep-ponds on the downs are all filled by rains. A great beast-market this day at Arundel.
- 1776: October 28, 1776 – The month of Oct. has been very dry: mill-ponds begin to want water. Sheep frolick.
- 1769: October 28, 1769 – Mrs J. W. sailed.
- 1768: October 28, 1768 – Some wheat is now sowing.
Posted by sydney on Oct 27th, 2008
- 1792: October 27, 1792 – Some few grapes just eatable: a large crop. Housed all the billet wood. Leaves fall in showers. A curlew is heard loudly whistling on the hill towards the Wadden. On this day Mrs S. Barker was brought to bed of a boy, who advances my nepotes to the round & compleat number of 60.
- 1791: October 27, 1791 – Young martins, & their dams again. Wood-cock on the down. Bro Ben, & wife, & Hannah left us, & went to Newton.
- 1790: October 27, 1790 – Grapes better.
- 1789: October 27, 1789 – Planted out many young laurustines, & Portugal laurels from the old stools.
- 1788: October 27, 1788 – Set up again my stone dial, blown down many years ago, on a thick Portland-slap in the angle of the terrass. The column is very old, came from Sarson house near Amport, & was hewn from the quarries of Chilmarke. The dial was regulated by my meridian line.
- 1785: October 27, 1785 – Water in the well very deep.
- 1784: October 27, 1784 – Dug, trenched, & earthed the asparagus-beds, & filled the trenches with leaves, flower-stalks, etc.
- 1782: October 27, 1782 – Two of my brother Henry’s gold-fish have been sick, & cannot live with the rest in the glass-bowl but in a tin-bucket by themselves they soon become lively, & vigorous. They were perhaps too much crouded in the bowl. When a fish sickens it’s head gets lowest; so that by degrees it stands as it were ont it’s head; ’till getting weaker & losing all poise, the tail turns over; & at last it floats on the water with it’s belly uppermost. Gold & silver-fishes seem to want no aliment, but what they can collect from pure water frequently changed. They will eat crumbs, but do better without; because the water is soon corrupted by the pieced of bread, & turns sour. Tho’ they seem to take nothing, yet the consequences of eating frequently drop from them: so that they must find many animalcula, & other nourishment. With their pinnae pectorales they gently protrude themselves forward or backward: but it is with their strong muscular tails only that Fishes move with such inconceivable rapidity.
It has been said that the eyes of fishes are immoveable: but these apparently turn them forward or backward in their sockets as their occasions require. They take little notice of a lighted candle, though applied close to their heads, but flounce and seem much frightened by a sudden stroke of the hand against the support whereon the bowl is hung; especially when they have been motionless, and are perhaps asleep. As fishes have no eyelids, it is not easy to discern when they are sleeping or not, because their eyes are always open.
Nothing can be more amusing than a glass bowl containing such
fishes: the double refractions of the glass and water represent them, when moving, in a shifting and changeable variety of dimensions, shades, and colours; while the two mediums, assisted by the concavo-convex shape of the vessel, magnify and distort them vastly; not to mention that the introduction of another element and its inhabitants into our parlours engages the fancy in a very agreeable manner.
- 1781: October 27, 1781 – My well sinks and is very low. The tortoise begins to dig into the ground. Mr Yalden fetches water from Well-head. The bat is out this warm evening.
- 1776: October 27, 1776 – Larks frolick much in the air: when they are in that mood the larkers catch them in nets by means of a twinkling glass: this method they call daring.
- 1773: October 27, 1773 – Hares abound, but pheasants are very scarce this year. One of the vines to the S.W. casts its leaves & looks sickly.
- 1772: October 27, 1772 – Grapes decay with rain: are most highly ripened.
- 1770: Octber 27, 1770 – Ice. Cobwebs float in the air & cover the ground.
- 1769: October 27, 1769 – The weather has been dry just a month this day, one wet day excepted. The fields are so dry that farmers decline sowing. The lapwing, vanellus, congregates in great flocks on the downs, & uplands.
- 1768: October 27, 1768 – People are now housing corn after 27 days interruption.
Posted by sydney on Oct 26th, 2008
- 1792: – Hired two old labourers to house my cleft billet wood, which is still in a dam, cold condition, & should have been under cover some months ago, had the weather permitted.
- 1791: October 26, 1791 – No young martins to be seen in the nest, nor old ones around it.
- 1790: October 26, 1790 – This morning Rear Admiral Cornish, with six ships of the line, & two smaller ships of war, sailed from St. Hellen’s.
- 1789: October 26, 1789 – Bror Th. W. sows laburnum seed on the hanger, & down. A wood-cock killed in the high wood.
- 1788: October 26, 1788 – Some woodcocks shot on the Barnet lately.
- 1786: October 26, 1786 – Several wet, floated fields are now sown, that must have missed their wheat-crop, & have lain ’till spring, had not this fine dry season drained them, & rendered them fit for sowing.
- 1784: October 26, 1784 – Horses begin to lie within.
- 1783: October 26, 1783 – If a masterly lands-cape painter was to take our hanging woods in their autumnal colours, persons unacquainted with the country, would object to the strength & deepness of the tints, & would pronounce, at an exhibition, that they were heightened & shaded beyond nature. Wonderful & lovely to the Imagination are the colourings of our wood-land scapes at this season of the year!
“The pale descending year, yet pleasing still,/A gentler mood inspires; for now the leaf/Incessant rustles from the mournful grove,/Oft startling such as, studious, walk below,/And slowly circles thro’ the waving air./But should a quicker breeze amid the boughs/Sob, o’er the sky the leafy deluge streams;/Till chak’d & matted with the dreary shower,/The forest-walks, at every rising gale,Roll wide the wither’d wast, & whistle bleak.” — Thompson’s Autumn
- 1781: October 26, 1781 – Men sow their wheat in absolute dust. Bro. T. and M. went away.
- 1780: October 26, 1780 – Planted two rows of small lettuces under the fruit-wall to stand the winter: the ground works very fine. The rows reach the whole length of the wall.
- 1774: – The air swarms with insects, & yet the hirundines have disappeared for some time: hence we may infer that want of food alone cannot be the motive that influences their departure. * many little insects, most of which seem to be tipulae continue still to sport & play about in the air, not only when the sun shines warm; but even in fog & gentle rain, & after sunset. They appear at times the winter thro’ in mild seasons; & even in frost & snow when the sun shines warm. They retire into trees, especially ever-greens.
- 1772: October 26, 1772 – Swallow appears still. Vast rains.
Posted by sydney on Oct 25th, 2008
- 1791: October 25, 1791 – There are two young martins in the nest.
- 1790: October 25, 1790 – A flock of 46 ravens over the hanger. Slipped-out pinks, & fraxinals; planted out dames violets from cuttings.
- 1783: October 25, 1783 – The firing of the great guns at Portsmouth on this day, the King’s accession, shook the walls & windows of my house.
- 1782: October 25, 1782 – The gold & silver-fish lie sleeping all day in their silver-bowl towards the surface of the water: people that have attended to them suppose this circumstance prognostic of rain. Jupiter & Saturn approach to each other very fast.
- 1781: – Acorns abound, & help poor men’s hogs. “There has lately been felt in diverse parts of Hungary so extraordinary a heat, that the husband-men could only work in the night. All the snow that has covered the Carpathian mountains for more than a century is entirely melted.” St. James Chronicle
- 1780: – No beech-mast; many acorns. Many wall-nuts. My great tree produced, when measured in their husks, eight bushels
- 1778: October 25, 1778 – Truly winter-weather. Red-wings abound.
- 1777: October 25, 1777 – Hogs are put-up in their fatting pens. The hanging woods are beautifully tinged.
- 1776: October 25, 1776 – One bunting in the northfield: a rare bird at Selborne. * There is this year a remarkable failure of mushrooms: & the more to be wondered at, since the autumn has been both moist & warm. There is a great failure also of trufles in my Brother’s outlet at Fyfield, notwithstanding in simular weather they abounded last year. So that some secret cause influences alike these analogous productions of nature.
- 1775: October 25, 1775 – The arbutus casts it’s blossoms & discloses the rudiments of its fruit. In thses two instances fructifcation goes on the winter through. Three martins in the street. Gossamer on every bent. *Bynstede, the name of a parish near us, signifies locus cultus, vel habitatus. This barish abuts on a wild woodland district, which is a royal forest, & is called the Holt. This parish was probably cultivated when all around were nothing but woodlands, & forests.
- 1774: October 25, 1774 – Beautiful season for sowing of wheat. Much wet ground sown.
- 1773: – Began levelling my grass-plot & walks at the garden-door, & bringing them down to the level of the floor of my house.
- 1771: October 25, 1771 – White frost, sun, tempest. Vast rain & wind.
- 1770: October 25, 1770 – A young swallow appears.
- 1769: October 25, 1769 – A vivid aurora borealis, which like a broad belt stretched across the welkin from East to West. This extraordinary phenomenon. This extraordinary was seen the same evening in Gibraltar.
Posted by sydney on Oct 24th, 2008
- 1791: October 24, 1791 – The dams continue to feed the poor little martin in the nest at Burbey’s with great assiduity!
- 1790: October 24, 1790 – Dr Chandler buys of the Holiburne trufle-man one pound of trufles; price 2s. 6d.
- 1788: October 24, 1788 – Gave away many stone-less berberries: the tree every year bears vast burdens.
- 1785: Octber 24, 1785 – Dug up my potatoes, a poor crop: many of them are rotten.
- 1784: October 24, 1784 – I have seen no ants for some time, except theJet-ants, which frequent gate-posts. These continue still to run forwards, & backwards on the rails of gates, & up the posts, without seeming to have anything to do. Nor do they appear all the summer to carry any sticks or insects to their nests like other ants.
- 1782: October 24, 1782 – Grapes at this place eatable: the sort, black cluster, come from Selborne.
- 1781: October 24, 1781 – The tortoise is very torpid, but does not bury itself.
- 1778: October 24, 1778 – Farmers put-up their fatting hogs.
- 1773: October 24, 1773 – Woodlark sings. Great titmouse reassumes it’s spring note.
Posted by sydney on Oct 23rd, 2008
- 1792: October 23, 1792 – Dr Bingham & family left Selborne.
- 1789: October 23, 1789 – The quantity of haws is prodigious!
- 1788: October 23, 1788 – Much peat carried thro’ the village.
- 1787: October 23, 1787 – The number of partridges remains very great. Pheasants do not abound.
- 1786: – Red-wings are late this autumn. Perhaps the vintage was late this year in Germany; so that these birds were detained by the grapes, which they did not wish to exchange for our hips & haws. Red-wings do much damage in vineyards, when the grapes are ripe. My tall hedges, & the hanging woods, do not shew their usual beautiful tints & colours: the reason is because the foliage was so much torn & shattered by the rain & tempests.
- 1783: – The poor make quite a second harvest by gathering of acorns. Timothy Turner has purchased upwards of 40 bushels. Two truflers came with their dogs to hunt our hangers, & beechen woods in search of truffles; several of which they found in the deep narrow part of the hill between coney-croft-hanger, & the high wood; & again on each side of the hollow road up the high-wood, known by the name of coach-road.
- 1782: – My brother’s children & plantations strangely grown in two years. On the downs the green wheat looked very chearful & pleasant. Some wheat & turnips covered with charlock in full bloom. This proves, it seems, but a poor trufle-year at Fyfield; so they fail some times in very wet years, as well as in very dry ones.
- 1781: October 23, 1781 – Farmer Eaves of Old-place fetches his water from Well-head. Jupiter is now very low in the S.W. at sunset.
- 1779: October 23, 1779 – Whitings, & herrings. timothy, the old tortoise at this house, weighs 6 pounds 9 ounces & an half averdupoise. It weighed last year, Oct. 2, and ounce & an half more. But perhaps the abstemious life that it lives a this season may have reduced it’s bulk: for tortoises seem to eat nothing for some weeks before they lay-up. However this enquiry shews, that these reptiles do not, as some have imagined, continue to grow as long as they live. This poor being has been very torpid for some time; but it does not usually retire under ground ’til the middle of next month.
- 1774: – Snipes begin to quit the moors, & to come up into the wet fallows.
- 1772: October 23, 1772 – The martins about. Glow-worms shine.
- 1771: October 23, 1771 – Sprinkling rain & rumbling wind.
- 1768: October 23, 1768 – Fallows in a sad, wet, weedy condition: scarce any wheat sown.
Posted by sydney on Oct 22nd, 2008
- 2010: Welcome – This project is now finished, and contains a fairly complete transcription of forty years of the personal journals of Gilbert White. If you enjoy them, be sure to read his book, The Natural History of Selborne – you can download it for free from Project Gutenberg.
If you wish to see the entries for a particular day, use the search box in the upper right corner of this page. Months should be spelled out, and days entered as plain numerals, for instance, “September 14” if you want the aggregate for all years, or “November 1 1776” for a specific date.Enjoy!
- 1791: October 22, 1791 – One young martin in one of Burbey’s nests, which the dams continue to feed. Gracious stream now runs a little.
- 1789: October 22, 1789 – Mended the planks of the zigzag. Bro. Tho. White sowed the naked part of the hanger with great quantities of hips, haws, sloes, & holly-berries. In May last he sowed a pound of furze seeds on the same naked space; many of which appear to have grown: & lately he sowed two pounds more. *added note: Decembr 1790. As fast as any of these seeds have sprouted, they have constantly been brouzed off, & bitten down by the sheep, which lie very hard on them, & will not suffer them to thrive.
- 1788: October 22, 1788 – Much wheat is sown. The fallows are very dry; & the roads as clean as in summer.
- 1786: October 22, 1786 – Bror. & Sister Benj. left us.
- 1785: October 22, 1785 – My well is risen six or seven yards.
- 1781: October 22, 1781 – Men continue to fetch peat from the forest.
- 1776: – The nuthatches are busy rapping with their bills about the wallnut trees: & as I find wall-nuts fallen down there, with holes picked in their shells; no doubt they were made by those birds.
- 1775: October 22, 1775 – My autumn crop of spinage this year runs much to seed.
- 1773: October 22, 1773 – Fog, rain, fog, fog. Saw several martins at Dorchester in Oxfordshire round the church. It is remarkable that the swallow kind appear full as late in the midland counties, as in the maritime: a circumstance this more favourable to hiding than to migration. As it proved these martins were the last that I saw.
- 1772: October 22, 1772 – This morning the young martins forsook their nest & were flying round the village. Grapes delicate, & plenty.
- 1768: October 22, 1768 – French-beans are planted in the hot-house at Hartley. Pines are still cutting.
Posted by sydney on Oct 21st, 2008
- 1790: October 21, 1790 – I conclude that the Holiburne trufler finds encouragement in our woods, & hangers, as he frequently passes along the village: he is a surly fellow, & not communicative. He is attended by two little cur-dogs, which he leads in a string.
- 1789: October 21, 1789 – Woodcock seen on the down, among the fern. Finished gathering the apples, many of which are fair fruit. Shoveled the zigzag. Leaves fall. My wall-nut trees, & some ashes are naked.
- 1787: October 21, 1787 – William Dewye Senr. who is now living, has been a certificate man at Selborne since the year 1729, some time in the month of April. He is a parishioner at the town of Wimborn-Minster at the County of Dorset.
- 1785: October 21, 1785 – Timothy the tortoise lies in the laurel-hedge, but is not buried.
- 1784: October 21, 1784 – This day at 4 o’clock P: M: Edmd White launched an air-balloon from Selborne-down, measuring about 8 feet & 1/2 in length, & sixteen feet in circumference. It went off in a steady, & grand manner to the E, & settled in about 15 minutes near Todmoor on the verge of the forest.
- 1783: October 21, 1783 – Nasturtiums in high bloom, & untouched by the frost!
- 1781: October 21, 1781 – The distress for water in many places is great. A notion has always obtained, that in England hot summers are productive of fine crops of wheat: yet in the years 1780, and 1781, tho’ the heat was intense, the wheat was much mildewed, & the crop light. Quaere, Does not severe heat, while the straw is milky, occasion it’s juices to exsude, which being extravasted, occasion spots, discolour the stems & blades, & injure the health of the plants? The heat of the two last summers has scalded & scorched the stems of the wall-fruit trees, & has fetched-off the bark.
- 1776: October 21, 1776 – A cock pheasant flew over my house, & across the village to the hanger.
- 1775: October 21, 1775 – The storm on thursday night tore all the remaining flowers to pieces. *With us the country people call coppices, or brush-wood, ris, or rice: now hris in Saxon signifies frondes, & is no doubt whence our provincial term originates. Hraed hriz is frondes celeres: hence probably Red Rice, the name of a hunting-seat standing in the midst of a coppice at Andover.
- 1773: October 21, 1773 – No swallows or martins observed.
- 1772: October 21, 1772 – Under the eaves of a neighbourning house is a martin’s nest full of young ready to flie. The old ones hawk for flies with great alertness.
- 1769: October 21, 1769 – Merulae torquatae still about: the abound more, & stay longer than in former autumns. Oedicnemus clamours very loudly. Leaves fall apace. Barometer falls apace.
- 1768: October 21, 1768 – Swallow.
Posted by sydney on Oct 20th, 2008
- 1790: October 20, 1790 – Spring-keepers come up in the well-bucket. How they get down there does not appear: they are called by Mr Derham– squillae aquaticae.
- 1789: October 20, 1789 – Gathered in nonpareils, & some royal russets.
- 1788: October 20, 1788 – Leaves fall. The pound field is sown with American wheat.
- 1786: October 20, 1786 – Rover springs several pheasants in Harteley-wood. We find many large coveys of partridges.
- 1785: October 20, 1785 – Much hay-making all the way. Hay housing at Alton.
- 1782: October 20, 1782 – No corn abroad but a few vetches. Lord Howe had a skirmish with the combined fleet, in which he ad 68 killed, and 208 wounded.
- 1778: October 20, 1778 – Planted long rows of tulips in the garden, & field. Linnets flock.
- 1775: October 20, 1775 – One swallow near Wallingford. strong wind. Acorns abound: the hogs in the lanes & woods seem to be half fat.
- 1772: October 20, 1772 – Woodcock returns. Papiliones and muscae abound on the asters. Redwings return.
- 1771: October 20, 1771 – Mild, & sun. Sweet day, large halo round the moon.
- 1770: October 20, 1770 – Turdus iliacus. Rain all night.
- 1769: October 20, 1769 – Linnets, chaffinches, yellow-hammers congregate. Skylark sings sweetly. Glowworms appear.
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