The Natural History of Selborne

Thunder, & hail.  A sad midsumr day.  When the Blattae seem to be subdued, & got under; all at once several large ones appear: no doubt they migrate from the houses of neighbours, which swarm with them.

Put sticks to some of the kidney-beans.  Longest day: a cold, harsh solstice!  The rats have carried away six out of seven of my biggest Bantam chickens; some from the stable, & some from the brew-house.

Pinks, scarlet-lychnis, & fraxinellas blow.  The narrow-leaved blue Iris, called Xiphium, begins to blow.

The spotted Bantam hen brings out seven chickens.  Took a black birds nest the third time: the young were fledged, & flew out of the nest at a signal given by the old ones.

When the servants are gone to bed, the kitchen-hearth swarms with minute crickets not so big as fleas.  The Blattae are almost subdued by the persevering assiduity of Mrs J. W. who waged war with them for many months, & destroyed thousands: at first she killed some hundreds every night.  The thermometer at George’s fields Surrey 82: on the 21, — 51.  St foin fly, sphynx filipendulae, appears.

Planted some hand-glass plants in the frames of the fruiting cucumber-bed: cut down the lining, & worked it up with some grass-mowings.  Some young fly-catchers are out, & fed by their dams.

Beat the banks; & planted cabbages in the meadow-garden.

Mr Burbey has got eleven martins nests under the eaves of his old shop.

In Alton

Went, & dined with my Brother Benjamin White at Mareland, to which he & his wife were come down for two or three days.  We found the house roomy, & good, & abounding with conveniences: the out-door accommodations are also in great abundance, such as a larder, pantry, dairy, laundry, pigeon-house, & good stables.  The view from the back front is elegant, commanding sloping meadows thro’ which runs the Wey (the stream  from Alton to Farnham) meandering in beautiful curves, & shewing a rippling fall occasioned by a tumbling bay formed by Mr. Sainesbury, who also widened the current.  The murmur of this water-fall is heard from the windows.  Behind the house next the turnpike are three good ponds, & round the extensive outlet a variety of pleasant gravel walks.  Across the meadows the view is bounded by the Holt: but up & down the valley the prospect is diversifyed, & engaging.  In short Mareland is a very fine situation, & a very pleasing Gentleman’s seat.  I was much amused with the number of Hirundines to be seen from the windows: for besides the several martins and swallows belonging to the house, many Swifts from Farnham range up & down the vale; & what struck me most were forty or firty bank-martins, from the heaths, & sand-hills below, which follow the stream up the meadows, & were the whole day long busied in catching the several sorts of Ephemerae which at this season swarm in the neighbourhood of the waters.  The stream below the house abounds with trouts.  Nine fine coach-horses were burnt in a stable at Alresford.

Began to use green goose-berries.