The Natural History of Selborne

• 1791: September 3, 1791 – Bad weather for the hops, & pickers.  When the boys bring me wasps nests, my Bantam fowls fare deliciously; & when the combs are pulled to pieces, devour the young wasps intheir maggot-state with the highest glee, and delight.  Any inscet-eating bird would do the same: & therefore I have often wondered that the accurate Mr Ray should call one species of buzzard Buteo apivorus, sive vespivorus, or the Honey-buzzard, because some combs of wasps happened to be found in one fo their nests.  The combs were conveyed thither doubtless for the sake of the maggots or nymphs, & not for their honey;  since none is to be found in the combs of wasps.  Birds of prey occasionally feed on insects: thus have I seen a tame kite picking up the female ants, full of eggs, with much satisfaction.
• 1790: September 3, 1790 – Some hop-poles blown donw.  Mr Prowting of Chawton begins to pick hops.
• 1789: September 3, 1789 – Mr Charles Etty returns from Canton.
• 1787: September 3, 1787 – Bror Thos. sons & daughter come from Fyfield.
• 1782: September 3, 1782 – Nep. Thomas Holt White & Henry came from Fyfield.
• 1777: September 3, 1777 – The working-wasps are very small, perhaps half starved in their larva-state for want of pears, plums, etc.
• 1776: September 3, 1776 – The season for shooting is come; but scarce any partidges are to be found: the failure of breed is remarkable.  The tops of the beeches begin to be tinged with a yellow hue.
• 1775: September 3, 1775 – Great rain.  Hops sadly washed.  Destroyed the 26th wasps-nest, a vast colony.
• 1774: September 3, 1774 – Turned the horses into the great mead: there is good after-grass considering that the field was not mown ’til July 16.
• 1773: September 3, 1773 – Young wagtails come out.  Delicate peaches & nectarines in plenty.  * The beards of cone-wheat do not long preserve the grain from sparrows: for as the corn gets ripe those aritae are shaken off by the wind.
• 1772: September 3, 1772 – Some wasps appear.  Museli plums become ripe.
• 1771: September 3, 1771 – Nuthatch chirps flying.  Swallows feed their young perchers.
• 1769: September 3, 1769 – Winged ants migrate from their nests.  Tame buzzard eats the winged ants.  Swallows congregate in vast flocks.
• 1768: September 3, 1768 – Much wheat still abroad.  Hop-picking becomes general: there is a vast crop.

• 1792: September 2, 1792 – The well at Temple is 77 feet deep: 60 to the water, & seventeen afterwards.  My well measures only 63 feet to the bottom.
  Goleigh well to the water is 55 1/2 yrds  /166 feet; to the bottom 57 1/2 yrds / 172 1/2 feet; Heards well to the water is 70 2/3 yrds / 212 feet; to the bottom 83 1/3 yrds / 250 feet.
  A stone was 4 1/2 seconds falling to the bottom of Heards well; & 4 seconds to the water of Goleigh.   The wells were measured accurately by the Revd. Edumund White on the 25th of August 1792, in the midst of a very wet summer.  Deep, & tremendous as is the well at Heards, John Gillman, an Ideot, fell to the bottom of it twice in one morning; & was taken out alive, & survived the strange accident many years.  Only Goleigh & Heards wells were measured by Mr E. White.
• 1791: September 2, 1791 – Cut 62 cucumbers.  Holt White left us, & went to Newton.
• 1789: September 2, 1789 – Bees feed on the plums, & the mellow goose-berries.  They often devour the peaches, & nectarines.
• 1788: September 2, 1788 – 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.
• 1783: September 2, 1783 – Nectarine, one of the new trees, the fruit delicate. Two of the new peach, & Nect. Trees this year are distempered, & one barren: one nect: has a crop of well-flavoured fruit.
• 1782: September 2, 1782 – Contrary to all rule the wheat this year is heavy, & the straw short: last year, tho’ so much heat prevailed, the wheat was light & the straw was long.
• 1779: September 2, 1779 – Partridges innumberable.  Barley-harvest finished here.
• 1776: September 2, 1776 – Vast shower with hail.  Turned the horses into the great mead.  Much grass. A part of the orchard, where I laid the earth which came out of the garden, was sown in April with rye-grass, & hop trefoil, & has been mown already three times.
• 1775: September 2, 1775 – Gathered first grapes: they look well; & are large; but not highly flavoured yet.  Sad hop-picking: a large crop in this district.  Barley in the suds.
• 1774: September 2, 1774 – Hop-picking begins at Faringdon.  Wasps abound.
• 1773: September 2, 1773 – Some perennial asters begin to blow.  Grapes rather small as yet.  Several bunches begin to turn.
• 1772: September 3, 1772 – Hibiscus syriacus.  Grapes begin to change colour.  Some wheat still out.  The weather bad for hop-picking.
• 1771: September 2, 1771 – Corn is housed.  Swallows feed their young flying.
• 1769: September 2, 1769 – Wheat harvest finished.  A comet, having a tail about six degrees in length, appears nightly in the constellation of Aries, between the 24, 29, & 51 stars of that constellation in the English catalogue.

• 1792: September 1, 1792 – Grass grows on the walks very fast.  Garden beans at an end.
• 1788: September 1, 1788 – A sand-piper shot at Hawkley.
• 1787: September 1, 1787 – The shooters find many coveys, but not large ones. Not one wasp.
• 1785: September 1, 1785 – Dogs eat the goose-berries when they become ripe; & now they devour the plums as they fall; last year they tore the apricots off the trees.
• 1784: September 1, 1784 – Farmer Town began to pick his hops: the hops are many, but small.  They were not smitten by the hail. Because they grew at S.E. end of the village.  Hopping begins at Hartley.  The two hop-gardens, belonging to Farmer Spencer & John Hale, that were so much injured, as it was supposed, by the hail-storm on June 5th shew now a prodigious crop, & larger & fairer hops than any in the parish.  The owners seem now to be convinced that the hail, by beating off the tops of the binds, has encreased the side-shoots, & improved the crop.  Query:  should not the tops of hops be pinched-off when the binds are very gross, & strong?  We find this practice to be of great service with melons, & cucumbers.  The scars, & wounds on the binds, made by the great hailstones are still very visible.
• 1783: September 1, 1783 – Red sunshine.  Sowed a bed of Coss-lettuce.
• 1781: September 1, 1781 – We have caught about 20 hornets with bird-lime.
• 1777: September 1, 1777 – Cold, white dew, sun, brisk air, clouds about, sun breaks out.  Destroyed a small wasp’s-nest: the combs were few, but full of young.
• 1776: September 1, 1776 – The barley coming-up unequally is not yet ripe.  Hops promise to be very small.
• 1775: September 1, 1775 – Barley begins to be injured.  Many fields of barley,  green & not mowed.
• 1773: September 1, 1773 – Orleans plums begin to ripen.  Hops continue small & have not grown kindly since the storm.
• 1770: September 1, 1770 – Not one wasp appears notwithstanding the long dry season.  Cuckows skim over the ponds at Oakhanger, & catch libellulae on the weeds, & as the flie in the air.  I can give no credit to the motion that they are birds of prey.  They have a weak bill & no talons.
• 1768: September 1, 1768 – Transplanted some plants of the Helleborus viridis from the Honey-lane near Norton to the shrubbery in the orchard.  Smallest Regulus non cristatus chirps.  Owls have young still in the nest.

• 1792: August 31, 1792 – Many moor-hens on Comb-wood pond.
• 1791: August 31, 1791 – Cut 31 cucumbers.  Fly-catcher still appears.
• 1790: August 31, 1790 – Farmer Spencer’s wheat-rick, when it was near finished, parted, & fell down.  Charles, & Betty White came from Fyfield.
• 1789: August 31, 1789 – Gathered a bushel-basket of well-grown cucumbers, 238 in number.  Molly White, & T.H. White left us, & went to London.
• 1787: August 31, 1787 – Young hirundines cluster on the dead boughs of the walnut tree.
• 1783: August 31, 1783 – Tremendous thunder-storm in London.  The stream which rises in James Knight’s upper pond has failed all this summer, as it does all very dry summers; so that the channel is dry down to the middle of the short Lithe; from whence there is always water running ’till it joins the Well-head stream at little Dorton.  This spring, which is at the bottom of the Church-litten-closes, seems to rise out of the hill on which the Church is built.  Timothy begins to frequent the border under the fruit-wall for the sake of warmth.
• 1782: August 31, 1782 – Began to turn the horses into the great meadow: there is a fine head of grass. In the month of Aug. there fell 8 inch, 28h. of rain!
• 1781: August 31, 1781 – Began to use endive, which is large & well-blanched. No swifts. We seached the eaves to no purpose. In searching the eaves for the young swifts, we found in a nest two callow dead swifts, on which had been formed a second nest. These nests were full of the black shining cases of the hippoboscae hirundinis.
• 1780: August 31, 1780 – The season is so dry that no trufle-hunter has yet tryed my brother’s grove.
• 1779: August 31, 1779 – The grass burns.
• 1777: August 31, 1777 – ‘Til now the whole month of Aug. has been dry and pleasant.  The evenings begin to feel chilly.
• 1776: August 31, 1776 – Fine harvest day.  Some corn housed.
• 1774: August 31, 1774 – Spitting rain, with wind all day.  Wheat begins to grow.  Several nectarines rot on the trees.  Peaches rot: plums burst & fall off.
• 1770: August 31, 1770 – Hop-picking begins.  Plants in the garden suffer from want of moisture.  Great N. Aurora considering the bright moon.
• 1768: August 31, 1768 – Grapes begin to turn colour.  Nectarines ripe.  Stoparola brings out its young.

• 1791: August 30, 1791 – Mr Hale begins his hops near the Pound field.  Farmer Hoar says that during this late blowning weather his well was raised some rounds of the rope.
• 1790: August 30, 1790 – Cut 152 cucumbers.  A fine harvest day: much wheat bound, & much gleaning gathered.
• 1789: August 30, 1789 – Michaelmass daisies begin to blow.
• 1786: August 30, 1786 – Hop picking becomes general.  The women earn good wages this year: some of them pick 24 bush. in a day, at 3 half-pence per bushel.
• 1785: August 30, 1785 – The kings field is open to the down.  No mushrooms to be found with us: the case was the same last year.
• 1783: August 30, 1783 – Planted-out in a bed a great number of Seedling-polyanths: seed from Bramshot-place.
• 1782: August 30, 1782 – The air is chilly, & has an October-feel.
• 1781: August 30, 1781 – Between nine & ten at night a thunder-storm whith much vivd lightening began to grow up from the N.W. & W.: but it took a circuit round to the S. & E. & so missed us.  We had only the skirts of the tempest, & a little heavy rain for a short time.  Ten miles off the the southward there were vast rains.
• 1777: August 30, 1777 – Finished tiling the new parlor in good dry condition just before the rain came.  The wall & timbers will be in much better order for this circumstance.  * The pair of martins brought-out all their young August 26: they still roost in the nest.  The nest was begun June 21.  Woolmer-forest produces young teals, & young large snipes; but never, that we can find, any young jack-snipes.
• 1776: August 30, 1776 – Mr Woods of Chilgrove thinks he improves his flock by turning the east-country poll-rams among his horned ewes.  The east-country poll sheep have shorter legs, & finer wool; & black faces, & spotted fore-legs; & a tuft of wooll in their fore-heads.  Much corn of all sorts still abroad.  Was wetted thro’ on the naked downs near Parham-ash.  Some cuckoos remain.  N.B.  From Lewes to Brightehelmstone, & thence to Beeding-hill, where the wheat-ear traps are frequent no wheat-ears are to be seen: But on the downs west of Beeding, we saw many.   A plain proof this, that those traps make a considerable havock among that species of birds.
• 1774: August 30, 1774 – Pulled the first Wrench’s radishes: they are mild & well-flavoured: are long & tap-rooted: bright red above ground, & milk-white under.
• 1773: August 30, 1773 – Tyed up endives.  Some people have finished wheat-harvest.
• 1772: August 30, 1772 – Mich. daisy begins to blow.
• 1771: August 30, 1771 – Young stoparolas abound.  Swallows congregate in vast flocks.  Wheat housed.
• 1768: August 30, 1768 – The goatsucker still appears.

• 1791: August 29, 1791 – Hop-picking begins in Hartley gardens.  Cut 96 cucumbers.
• 1786: August 29, 1786 – Tyed-up the unmoved endives.
• 1785: August 29, 1785 – John Hale, & Farmer Spencer begin to pick hops.
• 1784: August 29, 1784 – A Faringdon man shot a young fern-owl in his orchard.
• 1782: August 29, 1782 – The store-sheep on the down are in good case.  Some men began to house wheat before the shower.  Were forced to light a fire in the parlor.  On this day the Royal George, a 100 gun ship, was unfortunately over-set at Spithead, as she was heaving down.  Admiral Kempenfelt, & about 900 people, men, women, & children, were lost.  The lower port-holes being open the ship filled, & sunk in about 5 minutes.
• 1780: August 29, 1780 – On this day the people at Selborne were to begin picking of hops: the crop of hops is prodigious.
• 1779: August 29, 1779 – House-crickets are heard in all the gardens, & court-yards.  One came to my kitchen-hearth.
• 1776: August 29, 1776 – Full moon.  The rams begin to play court to the ewes.
• 1775: August 29, 1775 – Showers and sun.
• 1774: August 29, 1774 – Gathered the first plate of peaches: ripe but not high-flavoured.  First bleached endive.
• 1773: August 29, 1773 – A little black curculio damages the peaches by boring holes in them before they are quite ripe.  I do not remember this insect on my wall-fruit before.  They damage the leaves also.
• 1772: August 29, 1772 – Hop-picking begins.  Sultry.  Wheat housed in cold condition.  Orleans-plums become ripe.
• 1771: August 29, 1771 – Fog, sun, brisk wind.  Sweet day. Wheat begins to be housed.

• 1792: August 28, 1792 – Men make wheat-ricks.  Mr Hale’s rick fell. Vivid rain-bow.
• 1789: August 28, 1789 – Colchicum autumnale, naked boys, blows.  Wheat-harvest goes on finely.
• 1788: August 28, 1788 – 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.
• 1785: August 28, 1785 – Boys bring the 22nd, 23,rd, & 24th wasps nest.  Many wasps at the plum-trees.
• 1782: August 28, 1782 – Wheat grows as it lies: & the lodged wheat uncut is in a bad state.
• 1780: August 28, 1780 – There were at the King’s house at Winton 1600 Spanish prisoners; rather small men, & some very swarthy: here & there a fairish lad.
• 1776: August 28, 1776 – The tortoise eats voraciously: is particularly fond of kidney-beans.  Vast halo round the moon.
• 1773: August 28, 1773 – Some few grapes begin to turn red.  Peaches begin to ripen & are large & good.  Nectarines look well: they are ruddy & very large.
• 1771: August 28, 1771 – Dark, grey, & soft.  People bind their wheat.
• 1769: August 28, 1769 – Much wheat abroad in this parish.  Plums and pears crack with the rain.

The Spanish prisoners were I suppose taken in a naval affair during the War of American Independence, but I’m drawing a blank on “the King’s House at Winton”. There’s a stately home by that name near Edinburgh, but that was never a Royal palace; and a logical-sounding parish of Winton near Bournemouth, which however only aquired that name much later. If anyone can shed light o incident, please use the contact form– I’ve had to close comments after a sudden onslaught of spam. Apologies as well for the continued shabiness of the site– I’ve had a much busier summer than anticipated.

• 1792: August 27, 1792 – A fern-owl this evening showed-off in a very unusual, & entertaining manner, by hawking round, & round the circumference of my great spreading oak for twenty times following, keeping mostly close to the grass but occasionally glancing up amidst the boughs of the tree.  This amusing bird was then in pursuit of a brood of some particular phalaena belonging to the oak, of which there are several sorts; & exhibited on the occasion a command of wing superior, I think, to that of the swallow itself.  Fern-owls have attachment to oaks, no doubt on account of food: for the next evening we saw one again several times among the boughs of the same tree; but it did not skim round it’s stem over the grass, as on the evening before.  In May these birds find the Scarabaeus melolontha on the oak; & the Scarabaeus solstitialis at Midsummer.  These peculiar birds can only be watched & observed for two hours in the twenty-four, & then in dubious twilight, an hour after sun-set & an hour before sun-rise.
• 1790: August 27, 1790 – Cold & comfortless weather.
• 1789: August 27, 1789 – Tho. Holt White comes from Fyfield.
• 1787: August 27, 1787 – Molly White & Nep. Tom rode to Fyfield.
• 1786: August 27, 1786 – Made five bottles, & a pint of catsup.
• 1779: August 27, 1779 – Full moon.  My well is shallow & the water foul.
• 1778: August 27, 1778 – Selborne people begin hop-picking.  The tops of beeches begin to turn yellow.
• 1777: August 27, 1777 – The large winged female ants, after they have wandered from their nests lose their wings & settle new colonies: are in their flying state food for birds, particulary hirundines.  No wasps: & if there were, there is no fruit for them.
• 1776: August 27, 1776 – Grey, sun, sweet day.
• 1775: August 27, 1775 – 8 more wasps nests; in all 25 have been destroyed round the village.
• 1773: August 27, 1773 – Vast quantities of nuts & filberts.
• 1770: August 28, 1770 – Delicate harvest weather.  Many loads of wheat housed.  Great bat appears; flies strongly and vigorously & very high.  I call this rare species vespertilio altivolans.
• 1770: August 27, 1770 – Sweet harvest-weather.  Wheat in general is light.  Hops grow very fast: a vast crop.
• 1768: August 27, 1768 – Much wheat housed.  Blue mist.  Yellow-hammers have young still, whcih they feed with tipulae.

• 1792: August 26, 1792 – A fly-catcher brings out a brood of young: & yet they will all withdraw & leave us by the 10th of next month.
• 1791: August 26, 1791 – My potatoes come in, & are good.
• 1790: August 26, 1790 – Planted out a bed of borecole, & three long rows of curled endive.  Bat comes out before the swallows are gone to roost.
• 1788: August 26, 1788 – Mr Hale & Tim Turner begin to pick hops in the Foredown.  Hale picked 350 bushels: his hops are large & fine.
• 1787: August 26, 1787 – Timothy the Tortoise, who has spent the two last months amidst the umbrageous forests of the asparagus-beds, begins now to be sensible of the chilly autumnal mornings; & therefore suns himself under the laruel-hedge, into which he retires at night.  He is become sluggish, & does not seem to take any food.
• 1786: August 26, 1786 – Earwigs damage the wall-fruit before it gets ripe, warm & moist. Young fowls die at Newton. Mushrooms are brought in the great plenty.
• 1783: August 26, 1783 – Some fly-catchers, that haunt about the church, take the flies off the sides of the towers much adroitness.  Swallows do the same in the decline of summer.
• 1778: August 26, 1778 – The failure of turnips this year is very great.
• 1777: August 26, 1777 – A spotted water-hen shot in the forest.
• 1776: August 26, 1776 – While the cows are feeding in moist low pastures, broods of wagtails, white & grey, run round them close up to their noses, & under their very bellies, availing themselves of the flies, & insects that settle on their legs, & probably finding worms & larvae that are roused by the trampling of their feet. Nature is such an oeconomist, that the most incongrous animals can avail themselves of each other! Interest makes strange friendships.
• 1772: August 26, 1772 – Wheat begins to grow under hedges.
• 1771: August 26, 1771 – Nuthatch chirps much. No swifts since 22nd.
• 1770: August 26, 1770 – Young swallows & martins congregate in prodigious swarms.
• 1768: August 26, 1768 – White dew.  Peaches ripen.  Barley begins to be cut.  Much wheat housed.

• 1789: August 25, 1789 – Sweet harvest weather.  Wheat ricked & housed.  Mr & Mrs S. Barker, & Miss E. Barker left us.
• 1785: August 25, 1785 – The dripping season has, this day, lasted six weeks; it has done some harm to the wheat, & retarded wheat-harvest; but has been of infinite service to the grass, & turnips, &c.
• 1784: August 25, 1784 – Sad harvest weather.  This proves a very expensive, & troublesome harvest to the farmers.  Pease suffer much & will be lost out of the pod.  My great apricot-tree appeared in the morning to have been robbed of some of it’s ripe fruit by a dog that had stood on his hind legs, & eaten-off some of the lower apricots, several of which were gnawn, & left on the ground, with some shoots of the tree.  On the border were many fresh prints of a dogs feet.  I have know a dog eat ripe goose-berries, as they hung on the trees.  Many wallnuts on the tree over the stable: the sort is good, but the tree seldom bears.
• 1783: August 25, 1783 – Muscae domesticae swarm in the kitchen.  When the sun breaks-out, the roofs, & grass-walks reek.  Men cut their field-beans.
• 1782: August 25, 1782 – Clays pond runs over.  Not one wasp or hornet to be seen: nor if there were, is there any fruit to support them.  On such a summer, it seems quite a wonder that the whole race is not extinct.
• 1780: August 25, 1780 – The thermomr which on the stair-case stood at 67, in the wine-vault became 60 3/4; & again when it was 66 on the stair-case, by being plunged into a bucket of water, fresh-drawn, it fell to 51.
• 1775: August 25, 1775 – Sr Simeon Stuart begins to pick his hops.  Wasps have begun on the grapes.  Seventeen wasps nests destroyed.  Peaches are gathered every day, being injured by the wasps: they are not full ripe.  *Twaite, in Saxon is ground cleared from wood, & plowed; Woddan is not a way, but the verb to go: wud is wood in Saxon.
• 1773: August 25, 1773 – Tho’ there was a brisk air from the S. all the afternoon; yet the clouds in an upper region flew swiftly all the while from ye N. in great quantities.
• 1772: August 25, 1772 – Much wheat abroad.  Strong gusts.  Much rain.  The ground is well-moistened.
• 1771: August 25, 1771 – Wheat not ripe at Faringdon.  Winter weather.  Oats & barley ripe before wheat.
• 1770: August 25, 1770 – Wheat begins to be housed.  Trenched out celeri.
• 1769: August 25, 1769 – Great showers about.  Male & female ants migrate at a great rate filling the ground & air.
• 1768: August 25, 1768 – Cucumber plants begin to decline.  Tyed up endive.  Large showers about.