The Natural History of Selborne

• 1793: June 9, 1793 – Early orange-lilies blow.  Few chafers.  The water at Kingsley mill begins to fail. The land-spring in the stoney-lane, as you go to Rood, stops.  We draw much water for the garden: the well sinks very fast.
• 1791: June 9, 1791 – Summer-cabbages, & lettuce come in.  Roses red & white blow.  Began to tack the vines.  Thomas finds more rudiments of bloom than he expected.
• 1789: June 9, 1789 – Field-crickets shrill on the verge of the forest.  Cockoos abound there. Thinned the apricots, & took off many hundreds.
• 1788: June 9, 1788 – Mazagon beans come in.
• 1786: June 9, 1786 –  in Alton
  Captain Dumaresque cuts his St foin.
• 1782: June 9, 1782 – When the servants have been gone to bed some time, & the kitchen left dark, the hearth swarms with young crickets about the size of ants: there is an other set among them of larger growth: so that it appears two broods have hatched this spring.
• 1781: June 9, 1781 – A pair of swallows hawk for flies ’til within a quarter of nine o’clock; they probably have young hatched.
• 1780: June 9, 1780 – Hoed the quick-sets at the bottom of the hanger.
• 1776: June 9, 1776 – Forest-fly begins to appear.  Grass & corn grow away.
• 1774: June 9, 1774 – Chafers are pretty well gone; they did not deface the hedges this year.  When swifts mute flying, they raise their wings over their backs.
• 1773: June 9, 1773 – Swifts sit hard.
• 1772: June 9, 1772 – Apis longicornis. The long-horned bees bore their nests in the ground where it is trodden the hardest.

• 1793: June 7, 1793 – Watered well the white poplar at the foot of the bostal. Cut the slope hedge in the Bakers hill.  Mrs. Clement, & children came.
• 1791: June 7, 1791 – Heavy thundrous clouds, copious dew. Opened, & slipped-out the superfluous shoots of the artichockes.
• 1791: June 7, 1791 – Hops grow prodigiously, yet are infested with some aphides.  Early cabbages turn hard, but boil well.  Watered kidney-beans, which come-up well.
• 1790: June 7, 1790 – Went to London by Guilford & Epsom.  Spring-corn & grass look well.  Hay making near town.
• 1788: June 7, 1788 – Bro. Ben ricked ye hay of eleven acres of ground in delicate order.
• 1787: June 7, 1787 – Ice thick as a crown piece.  Potatoes much injured, & whole rows of kidney-beans killed:  nasturtiums killed.
• 1783: June 7, 1783 – Tulips are faded. Honey-suckles still in beauty. My columbines are very beautiful: tyed some of the stems with pieces of worsted, to mark them for seed. Planted-out pots of green cucumbers. Dr Derham says, that all cold summers are wet summers: & the reason he gives is that rain is the effect and not the cause of cold. But with all due deference to that great Philosopher, I think, he should rather have said, that most cold summers are dry; For it is certain that sometimes cold summers are dry; as for example, this very summer hitherto: & in the summer 1765 the weather was very dry, & very cool. See Physico-theol: p: 22. Vast honey-dews this week. The reason of these seems to be, that in hot days the effluvia of flowers are drawn-up by a brisk evaporation; and then in the night fall down with the dews, with which they are entangled. This very clammy substance is very grateful to bees, who gather it with great assiduity, but it is injurious to the trees on which it happens to fall, by stopping the pores of the leaves. The greatest quantity falls in still, close weather; beacuse winds disperse it, & copious dews dilute it, & prevent its ill effects. It falls mostly in hazey warm weather.
• 1778: June 7, 1778 – The cucumbers abate in their bearing; & always do at this time of year.
• 1777: June 7, 1777 – The bees gather earnestly from the flowers of the buck-thorn.  Tho’ we are exempt from chafers this season round this district; yet between Winchester & Southampton they swarm so as to devour everything; the country stinks of them.
• 1776: June 7, 1776 – Fly-catcher builds.  Farmers cut clover for their horses.
• 1775: June 7, 1775 – Watered the wall-trees well this evening with the engine: the leaves are not blotched & bloated this year, but many shoots are shrivelled, & covered with aphides.  Plums & pears abound; moderate crop of apples with me.  Vine-shoots very forward.
• 1774: June 7, 1774 – Bees swarm and sheep are shorn.  My firs did not blow this year.
• 1772: June 7, 1772 – Field-cricket makes its shrilling noise.
• 1770: June 7, 1770 – Poygala vulg. in flower.  Mole-cricket churs.

• 1793: June 6, 1793 – Sowed two rows of large white kidney-beans: but the ground is so hard, that it required much labour to make it fit to receive the seed.  The old Bantam brought out only three chickens.
• 1792: June 6, 1792 – The mare lies out.  St foin begins to blow.
• 1791: June 6, 1791 – Wheat begins to come into ear: wheat, which was very yellow from the cold winds, by means of the heat has recovered it’s colour without the assistance of rain.  Dew, cloudless, sultry.  Red even, dead calm.  The lettuces, which stood under the fruit-wall thro’ the winter, are just over.  They have been of great service at the table now for many weeks.
• 1790: June 6, 1790 – After ewes & lambs are shorn there is great confusion & bleating, neither the dams nor the young being able to distinguish one another as before. This embarassment seems not so much to arise from the loss of the fleece, which may occasion an alteration in their appearance, as from the defect of that notus odor, discriminating each individual personally: which also is confounded by the strong scent of the pitch & tar wherewith they are newly marked; for the brute creation recognize each other more from the smell than the sight; & in matters of Identity & Diversity appeal much more to their noses than to their eyes. Thus dogs smell to persons when they meet, when they want to be informed whether they are stranger or not. After sheep have been washed, there is the same confusion, for the reason given above.
• 1789: June 6, 1789 – Aphides begin to appear on the hops: in some places they are called smother-flies.  Farmer Spencer’s Foredown hops are much injured, & are eaten by the chrysomelea: while Mr Hale’s adjoining are not much touched.
• 1788: June 6, 1788 – Scarlet strawberries at 2s. per pottle.  Red-backed butcher-bird, or Flusher, in Bro. Ben’s outlet.
• 1786: June 6, 1786 – Began to tack the vines; they are again infested with the cotton-like appearance which surrounds the eggs of the Coccus vitis viniferae…. for some account of this insect, see my Journal for summer last 1785.
• 1780: June 6, 1780 – Red valerian blows.  Terrible riots in London: & unpresidented burnings, & devastations by the mob.
• 1779: June 6, 1779 – Sparrows take possession of the martins nests.  When we shot the cock, the hen soon found another male; & when we killed the hen, the cock soon procured another mate; & so on for three or four times.
• 1778: June 6, 1778 – Snake gorges a toad much larger than itself.  When full it is very sluggish, & helpless, & easily taken.
• 1777: June 6, 1777 – Began to build the walls of my parlor, which is 23 feet & half by 18 feet; & 12 feet high & 3 inch.
• 1775: June 6, 1775 – Swifts abound: near 15 pairs: they seem to come from other villages.  H: martins now abound, & build briskly.
• 1774: June 6, 1774 – The redstart sits singing on the fane of the may-pole, & on the weather-cock of the tower.
• 1773: June 6, 1773 – Here & there a single chafer this year.
• 1772: June 6, 1772 – Showers, showers, clouds & wind.
• 1771: June 6, 1771 – Ephemera vulgata Meridie choreas aireas instituit, sursum recte tendens, rediensque eadem fere via: Scopoli.  A mole-cricket’s nest full of small eggs was discovered just under the turf in the garden near the pond.  They were of a dirty yellow colour, & of an oval shape, surrounded with a tough skin, & too small to have any rudiments of young withim them, being full of a viscous substance.  There might be an hundred eggs in this one nest; they lay very shallow just under a little fresh-moved mould in an hollow formed for that purpose.
• 1770: June 6, 1770 – Chafers abound. Sanicula europea in flower.

Notes:
Latin translation for 1771 entry courtesy of Tann: “The common May-fly begins its aërial dances at midday, rising up toward the right, and generally returning by the same way. —Scopoli”
Giovanni Antonio Scopoli (1723-1788) was an Austrian-Italian physician and naturalist.

• 1793: June 5, 1793 – Men’s St foin burns, & dies away.  The farmers on the sands complain that they have no grass.
• 1792: June 5, 1792 – One Fly-catcher builds in the Virginia Creeper, over the garden-door: & one in the vine over the parlor-window. Between Newton & us we heard three Fern-owls chattering on the hill; one at the side of the High-wood, one at the top of the Bostal, & one near the Hermitage. That at the top of the Bostal is heard distinctly in my orchard. Fern-owls haunt year by year nearly the same spots.
• 1791: June 5, 1791 – Elder, & corn-flags begin to blow already.  Thunder to the S.E., N.E., & N.W.  Gardens, & fields suffer.
• 1789: June 5, 1789 – Sowed some white cucumber-seeds from S. Lambeth under an hand-glass.  Moon-shine.
• 1787: June 5, 1787 – The tortoise took his usual ramble, & could not be confined within the limits of the garden. His pursuits, which seem to be of the amorous kind, transport him beyond the bounds of his usual gravity at this season. He was missing for some days, but found at last near the upper malt-house.
• 1785: June 5, 1785 – Dame’s violets blow, & are very double.
• 1784: June 5, 1784 – Much damage done to the corn, grass & hops by the hail; & many windows broken! Vast flood at Gracious street! vast flood at Kaker bridge! Nipped-off all the rose-buds on the tree in the yard opposite the parlor window in order to make a bloom in the autumn. No bloom succeeded.
• 1783: June 5, 1783 – Hops are very lousy, & want a good shower.  Washed the cherry-trees against the wall with a white-wash brush:  they are full of aphides, but have a vast crop of fruit.
• 1782: June 5, 1782 – My Bror. Thomas White nailed-up several large ‘scallop shells under the eaves of his house at South Lambeth, to see if the house-martins would build in them.  These conveniences had not been fixed half an hour, before several pairs settled upon them;  &, expressing great complacency, began to build immediately.  The shells were nailed on horizontally with the hollow side upward;  & should, I think, have a hole drilled in their bottoms to letoff moisture from driving rains.
• 1776: June 5, 1776 – Boys bring me female-wasps.  Apis longicornis bores it’s nests & copulates.
• 1774: June 5, 1774 – The swallows pursue the magpies & buffet them.  Wall-fruit swells.

• 1793: June 4, 1793 – Cinnamon-rose blows.
• 1792: June 4, 1792 – Hay making about London.
• 1791: June 4, 1791 – Saint foin blows, & the Stfoin fly Sphinx filipendula, appears. Rain at Emsworth. Fyfield sprung a fern-owl on the zig-zag which seemed confounded by the glare of the sun, & dropped again immediately. Mr. Bridger sends me a fine present of trouts caught in the stream down at Oakhanger. The distant hills look very blue in the evenings.
• 1789: June 4, 1789 – Ophrys nidus-avis, and ophrys apifera blossom.
• 1788: June 4, 1788 – Dingy. Saw some red-backed butcher birds about Farnham.
• 1787: June 4, 1787 – Bror. Ben cuts his hay.  Pease are cryed about at 1s. 6d. per peck.  Kidney-beans & potatoes are injured by the frost of saturday night.
• 1786: June 3, 1786 – Daws from the church take the chafers on my trees, & hedges.  Thomas picks the caterpillars that damage the foliage of the apricot-trees, & roll up their leaves.
• 1785: June 4, 1785 – Several halo’s & mock-suns this morning.  Wheat looks black, & gross.  Crickets sing much on the hearth this evening:  they feel the influence of moist air, & sing against rain.  As the great wall-nut tree has no foliage this year, we have hung the meat-safe on Miss White’s Sycomore, which she planted a nut;  where it will be much in the air, & be well sheltered from the sun by leaves.
• 1784: June 4, 1784 – A pair of fern-owls haunt round the zig-zag. Columbines make a fine show; this is the third year of their blowing.
• 1783: June 4, 1783 – Cut the tall hedge down Baker’s hill.
• 1783: June 3, 1783 – Turned mould for future hot-bed. Showers about. Great rain at Farnham, Froil &c. Rain at London.
• 1782: June 4, 1782 – Kidney-beans in a poor way: they have all been in danger of rotting.
• 1775: June 4, 1775 – Roses begin to blow:  pinks bud; fraxinella blows.  Garden burnt to powder.
• 1774: June 4, 1774 – The leaves of the mulberry-tree hardly begin to peep.  The vines promise well for bloom.  Apis longicornis works at it’s nest in the ground only in a morning while the sun shines on the walk.  Earth-worms make their casts most in the mild weather about March & April:  they do not lie torpid in winter, but come forth when there is no frost.
• 1773: June 4, 1773 – Began to tack the vines, which are backward.  Crataegus aria blows beautifully.
• 1772: June 4, 1772 – In Arundel
  Rain, dark and windy, driving rain, stormy.
• 1770: June 4, 1770 – Fleas abound on the steep sand-banks where the bank-martins build.
• 1769: June 4, 1769 – Bees swarm.  Turtle-dove cooes.

• 1793: June 3, 1793 – The ground sadly burnt up.  Royal russets show much bloom.  Summer cabbage comes in.
• 1792: June 3, 1792 – No may-chafers this year.  The intermediate flowers, which now figure between the spring, & solstitial, are the early orange, & fiery-lily, the columbine, the early honey-suckle, the peony, the garden red valeriam, the double rocket or dames violet, the broad blue flag-iris, the thrift, the double lychnis, spider-wort, monks-hood, &c.
• 1791: June 3, 1791 – Myriads of tadpoles travers Comb-wood pond in shoales:  when rain comes they will emigrate to land, & cover the paths & fields.  We draw much water for the garden, so that the well sinks. Flowers are hurried out of bloom by the heat;  spring-corn & gardens suffer.
• 1789: June 3, 1781 – Wheat-ears begin to burst-out.  Boys bring hornets.  The planet Venus is just become an evening star:  but being now in the descending signs;  that is, the end of Virgo, where it now is, being a lower part of the Zodiac than the end of Leo, where the sun is;  Venus does not continue up an hour after the sun, & therefore must be always in a strong twilight.  It sets at present N. of the west;  but will be in the S.W. but not set an hour after the sun ’til Octr. from which time it will make a good figure ’til March in the S.W., W., & a little to the N. of the W.
• 1788: June 3, 1788 – At S. Lambeth
  Blue mist.  Hay-making is general about Clapham & South Lambeth:  Bror. Benjamin  has eight acres of hay down, & making.
• 1787: June 3, 1787 – Bror. Thomas cuts cauliflowers.  The foliage on the Lombardy-poplars is very poor.
• 1784: June 3, 1784 – Corn looks finely.  Pricked-out some good celeri-plants.  Turned the horses into Berriman’s field.
• 1780: June 3, 1780 – The phalaena called the swift nighthawk appears.
• 1777: June 3, 1777 – The foliage of the nectarines is much blotched & shrivelled, so that the trees look poorly.
• 1776: June 3, 1776 – Soft rain.  Grass & corn improved by the rain already.  The long-horned bees bore their holes in the walks.
• 1775: June 3, 1775 – Hot sun, & brisk gale, sweet even.  Dusty beyond comparison.  Watered away five hogsheads of water.  Stoparola has five eggs.  Rooks live hard:  there are no chafers.  Barley & oats do not come up;  the fields look naked.  Some pairs of swifts always build in this village under the low thatched roofs of some of the meanest cottages:  & as there fails to be nests in those particular houses, it looks as if some of the same family still returned to the same place.
• 1774: June 3, 1774 – Martins abound:  they came late, but appear to be more in number than usual.  Some pairs of martins repair, & inhabit nests of several years standing.
• 1773: June 3, 1773 – A dozen pairs of swifts appear at times. Some heads of St. foin begin to blow.
• 1770: June 3, 1770 – Chafers much suppressed by the cold & the rain.
• 1769: June 3, 1769 – Saw the planet Venus enter the disk of the sun.  Just as the sun was setting the spot was very visible to the naked eye.  Nightingale sings; wood-owl hoots;  fern-own chatters.
• 1768: June 3, 1768 – The reed-sparrow, passer troquatus in aurundinetis nidificans, sings at Liss, near Mrs. Cole’s ponds.  It sings night and day while breeding & has a fine variety of notes.
  *As it appears since, this was the passer arundicnaceus minor of Ray: a thin-billed bird, and probably a bird of summer passage.

• 1793: June 2, 1793 – Bror. Benjn. & I measured my tall beech in Sparrow’s hanger, which, at five feet from the ground, girths six feet one inch, and three quarters.
• 1792: June 2, 1792 – Mushrooms are brought to the door.
• 1788: June 2, 1788 – Mr. Edmd. White, & Captain Dumaresque cut their Saint foin.
• 1787: June 2, 1787 – Hay is making at Vaux-hall.
• 1785: June 2, 1785 – Abram Loe came.  My well is very low.
• 1782: June 2, 1782 – Mr. Pink is obliged to leave 26 acres of barley-ground unsown. Feverish colds begin to be very freqent in this neighbourhood, & indeed the country over. Within the bills of mortality this disorder is quite epidemic, so that hardly an individual escapes. This complaint seems to have originated in Russia, & to have extended all over Europe. The great inclemency of the spring may best account for this universal malady.
• 1781: June 2, 1781 – Tulips are gone.  The heat injures the flowers in bloom.  St foin in full bloom.  Fly-catcher has five eggs.
• 1780: June 2, 1780 – Finished papering my great parlor.
• 1776: June 2, 1776 – Sultry, & heavy clouds. Smell of sulphur in the air. Paid for near 20 wasps: several were breeders; but some were workers, hatched perhaps this year.
• 1774: June 2, 1774 – Finished tacking the vines for the first time.  Planted-out annuals in theh basons down the field.
• 1773: June 2, 1773 – Lampyris noctiluca.  Thunder & lightening & moderate rain half the inght.  The corn & grass & gardens look well after ye rain.
• 1770: June 2, 1770 – Many sorts of dragon-flies appear for the first time.  Swifts devour the small dragon-flies as they first take their flight from out their aurelias, which are lodged on the weeds of ponds.  Chafers are eaten by the turkey, the rook, & the house-sparrow.

• 1793: June 1, 1793 – Timothy is very voracious:  when he can get no other food he eats grass in the walks.
• 1792: June 1, 1792 – Mr. & Mrs. Ben White left us, & went to Newton.
• 1791: June 1, 1791 – Fern-owl, & chur-worm jar.  Men wash their fatting sheep; & bay the stream to catch trouts.  Trouts come up our shallow streams almost to the spring-heads to lay their spawn.
• 1789: June 1, 1789 – Monks rhubarb seven feet high;  makes a noble appearance in bloom.
• 1787: June 1, 1787 – Some fly-catchers: but they do not yet begin to build.  Carrots drawn.
• 1786: June 1, 1786 – Potted nine tall balsams, & put the potts in a sunk bed. Dragon-flies have been out some days. The oaks in many places are infested with caterpillars of the Phalaena quercus to such a degree as to be quite naked of leaves. These palmer-worms hang down from the trees by long threads. The apple-trees at Faringdon are annoyed by an other set of caterpillars that strip them of all their foliage. My hedges are also damaged by the caterpillars.
• 1784: June 1, 1784 – The single white thorn over the ash-house is one vast globe of blossoms down to the ground.  Laburnums, berberries, &c. covered with bloom.  Peonies in flower.
• 1783: June 1, 1783 – The late frost cut-down the fern, & scorched many trees.  Wheat spindles for ear.
• 1781: June 1, 1781 – Grass-walks burn very much.  Ground chops.  Roses begin to blow.  Wheat spindles for ear.
• 1780: June 1, 1780 – Distant clouds, sultry, thunder-clouds.  Sulphurous smell in the air.  Sweet, even, small shower.  Strawberries blow well.  Medlar shows much bloom.  Honey-suckles blow.  Fern-owl chatter: chur-worm jars.  The tortoise shuns the intense heat by covering itself with dead grass; & does not eat ’til the afternoon.  Terrible storms in the Oxfordshire, & my Wilts.
• 1779: June 1, 1779 – In Mr. Richardson’s garden ripe scarlet strawberries every day; large artichokes, pease, radishes, beans just at hand. Bramshot soil is a warm, sandy loam. Small cauliflowers. Wheat shoots into ear. Barley & peas are good on the sands. The sands by liming, & turniping produce as good corn as the clays.
  Many large edible chestnut-trees which grew on the turnpike road near Bramshot-place were cut this spring for repairs: but they are miserbaly shaky, & make wretched timber. They are not only shaky, but what the workmen call cup-shakey, coming apart in great plugs, & round pieces as big as a man’s leg. The timber is grained like oak, but much softer.
• 1776: June 1, 1776 – Dames violets, double, blow finely:  roses bud:  tulips gone: pinks bud.  Bees begin to swarm.  Tacked the vines the first time.  Began to plant out annuals in the basons in the field.  Ponds & some wells begin to be dry.
• 1775: June 1, 1775 – Martin begins to build at the end of the brewhouse.
• 1774: June 1, 1774 – Planted vast rows of China-asters in the Garden.
• 1773: June 1, 1773 – Field cricket sings:  sings all night.
• 1770: June 1, 1770 – St. foin is large, & thick, & lodged by the rain.

• 1793: May 31, 1793 – My great oak abounds in bloom, which is of a yellowish cast: the young shoots usually look red. The house-martins at Mareland, in the few hot days, began to build, but when the winds became cold again immediately desisted.
• 1792: May 31, 1792 – Grass grows very fast.  Honey-suckles very fragrant, & most beautiful objects!  Columbines make a figure.  My white thorn, which hangs over the earth-house, is now one sheet of bloom, & has pendulous boughs down to the ground.  One of my low balm of Gilead firs begins to throw out a profusion of cones;  a token this that it will be a short-lived, stunted tree.  One that I planted in my shrubbery began to decay at 20 years of age.  Miller in his gardener’s Dictionary mentions the short continuance  of this species of fir, & cautions people against depending on them as a permanent tree for ornamental plantations.
• 1791: May 31, 1791 – Flowers smell well this evening:  some dew.
• 1790: May 31, 1790 – Bottled-out the port-wine which came here in October, but did not get fine.
• 1786: May 31, 1786 – Swifts are very gay, & alert.  Tulips are gone off.  Chafers abound:  they are quite a pest this year at, & about Fyfield.
• 1785: May 31, 1785 – Thomas persists in picking the cocci off the vine, and has destroyed hundreds.
• 1784: May 31, 1784 – Cinnamon rose blows.
• 1783: May 31, 1783 – Goose-berries, & currans are coddled on the trees by the frost.  Planted the basons in the fields with the annuals.  Began to tack the vine-shoots:  there will be a tollerable bloom.  The potatoes in the meadow seem to be all killed.  Aphides prevail on the many fruit-trees.  Medlar-tree blows.  The sun at setting shines up my great walk.
• 1782: May 31, 1782 – From Jan. 1, 1782 to May 31 Dof inclusive, the quantity of rain at this place is 24 inch. 7 hund. This is after the rate of about 58 inch. for the whole year. This evening Chafers begin to fly in great abundance. They suit their appearance to the coming-out of the young foliage, which in kindly seasons would have been much earlier.
• 1780: May 31, 1780 – Master Etty went on board the Vansittart India-man at Spithead.  Thunderstorm in the night with a fine shower.
• 1779: May 31, 1779 – Cut my Saint foin, the 12th crop. The smoke lies low over the fields. Glow-worms begin to appear.
• 1775: May 30, 1775 – House-martins do not build as usual:  perhaps are troubled to find wet dirt.  Bees swarm.  Severe heat in the lanes in the middle of the day.
• 1774: May 31, 1774 – Pulled off many hundreds of nectarines, which grew in clusters.  The leaves are distempered, & the trees make few shoots.  Vast crop of wall-fruit.
• 1773: May 31, 1773 – Ashes & walnut trees naked yet.  Fern-owl chatters.  Thunder.
• 1770: May 31, 1770 – Backward apples begin to blow.  The chafers seem much incomoded by the cold weather.

Notes:
Balm of Gilead fir, or balsam, a North American tree now popular for Christmas trees. In White’s day its pleasant-smelling balm was popularly sold as ‘Balm of Gildead’, although that was probably camphor.
Charles Etty was the son of the vicar of Selborne (Gilbert was not the vicar, only the curate); Gilbert was godfather to his son Littleton. Charles Etty was a ship’s mate and world traveler who often brought specimens back to Selborne. Three years after his first posting on the Vansittart he encountered her again in dramatic circumstances, being rescued by her from a shipwreck. The Vansittart herself was wrecked on a shoal in 1789.