The Natural History of Selborne

A fly-catcher brings out a brood of young: & yet they will all withdraw & leave us by the 10th of next month.

John Berriman’s hops at the end of the Foredown very fine.

Some wheat bound; & some gleaning.  I have not seen one wasp.

The seeds of the lime begins to fall.  Some wheat under hedges begins to grow.

My large American Juniper, probably Juniperus Virginiana, has produced this summer a few few small blossoms of a strong flavour like that of the juniper-berries: but I could not distinguish whether the flowers were male, or female; so consequently could not determine the sex of the tree, which is dioecious.  The order is dioecia monadelphia.

Thomas, in mowing the walks, finds that the grass begins to grow weak, & to yield before the scythe. This is an indication of the decline of heat. Yucca filamentosa, silk grass, glows with a fine large white flower. It thrives abroad in a warm aspect. Habitat in Virginia.

My shrub, Rhus cotinus, known to the nursery-men by the title of Cocygria, makes this summer a peculiar shew, being covered all over with it’s “bracteae paniculae filiformes,” which give it a feathery plume-like appearance, very amusing to those that have not seen it before.  On the extremities of these panicles appear about midsumer a minute white bloom which with us brings no seeds to perfection.  Towards the end of August the panicles turn red & decay.

Blackcaps eat the berries of the honey-suckles. Mrs J. White, after long & severe campaign carried on against the Blattae molendinariae, which have of late invaded my house, & of which she has destroyed many thousands, finds that at intervals a fresh detachment of old ones arrives; & particularly during the hot season: for the windows being left open in the evenings, the males come flying in at the casements from the neighbouring houses, which swarm with them. How the females, that seem to have no perfect wings that they can use, can contrive to get form house to house, does not so readily appear. These, like many insects, when they find their present abodes over-stocked, have powers of migrating to fresh quarters. Since the Blattae have been so much kept under, the Crickets have greatly encreased in number.

Housed two loads of peat.

Goose-berries wither on the trees.