The Natural History of Selborne

Diving Bell Spider, from The Outline of Science, 1922

• 1793: May 30, 1793 – Fyfield sprung a brace of pheasants in Sparrow’s hanger.  Hail-like clouds about.
• 1792: May 30, 1792 – My table abounds with lettuces, that have stood the winter; radishes; spinage; cucumbers; with a moderate crop of asparagus.
• 1791: May 30 1791 – Cinamon-roses blow.
• 1790: May 30, 1790 – John Carpenter brings home from the Plashet at Rotherfield some old chest-nut trees which are very long. In several places the wood-peckers had begun to bore them. The timber & bark of these trees are so very like oak, as might easily deceive an indifferent observer, but the wood is very shakey, & towards the heart cup-shakey, so that the inward parts are of no use. They were bought for the purpose of cooperage, but must make but ordinary barrels, buckets, &c. Chestnut sells for half the price of oak; but has some times been sent into the King’s docks, & passed off instead of oak.
• 1787: May 30, 1787 – Lactuca virosa spindles for bloom: the milky juice of this plant is very bitter, & acrid.
• 1786: May 30, 1786 – Honey-suckles begin to blow.  Columbines very fine.  Mr. Richardson has left us.
• 1780: May 30, 1780 – Columbines, a fine variegated sort, blow.
• 1778: May 30, 1778 – Barn-owls are out in the day, taking their prey in the sunshine about noon.
• 1776: May 30, 1776 – Strawberries blow well.  The first effectual rain after a long dry season.
• 1774: May 30, 1774 – The shell of the martin’s nest begun May 16 is finished.
• 1772: May 30, 1772 – Tortoise eats all day. In Mrs. Snooke’s ponds are vast spiders, which dive and conceal themselves on the undersides of plants, lying on the water: perhaps aranea aquatica Linn: urinatoria. The swallow seems to be the only bird that washes itself as it flies, by dropping into the water.

Notes
Fyfield was Gilbert White’s spaniel, replacing Rover who died in 1789.
Cup-shakey– meaning the rings of the wood come apart like the layers of an onion.
Lactuca virosa, wild lettuce– the juice is well-known to herbalists as a mild narcotic and ointment.

The diving bell spider, whose astounding life-style, or oeconomy, is fairly well described in this 1795 article from The General Genteel Preceptor. Diving bell spider fact: When the oxygen in the air in the bell has been consumed, the spider tears the balloon. The air goes to the surface and patiently, the spider darns the bell and again fills it with fresh air. “Here are some beautiful pictures of their underwater nests (warning: pictures of large spiders).

Additional note: in trying to find early references to the diving bell spider, stumbled across this absorbing read: Harmonies of Nature from 1815, which amongst other things approaches a theory of the global plankton cycle, and speculates about crowds of animals rushing seasonally to the poles of Mars to avail themselves of the ice.

• 1791: May 29, 1791 – The race of field-crickets, which burrowed in the short Lythe, & used to make such an agreeable, shrilling noise the summer long,  seems to be extinct.  The boys, I believe, found the method of probing their holes with the stalks of grasses, & so fetched them out, & destroyed them.
• 1788: May 29, 1788 – On this day there was a tempst of thunder & lightening at Lyndon in the County of Rutland, which was followed by a rain that lasted 24 hours.  The rain that fell was 1 in 40 h.
• 1783: May 29, 1783 – Young redstarts.
• 1780: May 29, 1780 – The tortoise shunned the heat, it was so intense.
• 1776: May 29, 1776 – Laburnums in beautiful bloom.  Hawthorns blow finely.
• 1775: May 29, 1775 – Grass on the common burnt very brown.  Tulips decay.  No dews for mowing in common.
• 1772: May 29, 1772 – Scarabaeus melolontha. Grasshopper-lark chirps.

• 1793: May 28, 1793 – My weeding-woman swept up on the grass-plot a bushel-basket of blossoms from the white apple-tree: & yet that tree seems still covered with bloom.
• 1793: May 28, 1793 – The season is so cold, that no species of Hirundines make any advances towards building, & breeding.  Brother Benjamin & Mrs. White, & Mary White, & Miss Mary Barker came.
• 1791: May 28, 1791 – Bantam-hen brings out four chickens.
• 1789: May 28, 1789 – A fly-catcher has built a nest in the great apricot-tree, in which there is one egg.
• 1788: May 28, 1788 – The Flycatcher, which was not seen ’till the 18th, has got a nest and four eggs.
• 1784: May 28, 1784 – Timothy the tortoise has been missing for more than a week. He got out of the garden at the wicket, we suppose; & may be in the fields among the grass.  Timothy found in the little bean-field short of the pound-field.  The nightingale, fern-owl, cuckow, & grass-hopper lark may be heard at the same time in my outlet.  Gryllo-talpa curs in the moist meadows.
• 1779: May 28, 1779 – Young pheasants!
• 1777: May 28, 1777 – Clouds flye different ways. Distant thunder.
• 1774: May 28, 1774 – The crows, rooks, & daws in great numbers continue to devour the chafers on the hanger. Was it not for those birds chafers would destroy everything. Rooks, now their young are flown, do not roost on their nest-trees, but retire in the evening towards Hartley-woods. Martins roost in the their new nests as soon as ever they are large enough to contain them.
• 1773: May 28, 1773 – Apis longcornis bores its nest in the field-walks.

This brings around the second year of this blog. I can only apologize for the scatterbrained posting lately.. I need to automate this!

• 1792: May 27, 1792 – The missel-thrush has got young.
• 1791: May 27, 1791 – Garden red valerian blows: where it sows itself soon becomes white.
• 1790: May 27, 1790 – Thunder; damage done in London.
• 1788: May 27, 1788 – Mr White of Newton fetches water from Newton pond to put into his tank.
• 1787: May 27, 1787 – There are three creatures, the squirrel, the field-mouse, and the bird called the nut-hatch (sitta Europaea), which live much on hazel nuts; and yet they open them each in a different way. The first, after rasping off the small end, splits the shell in two with his long fore-teeth, as a man does with his knife; the second nibbles a hole with his teeth, so regular as if drilled with a wimble, and yet so small that one would wonder how the kernel can be extracted through it; while the last picks an irregular ragged hole with its bill: but as this artist has no paws to hold the nut firm while he pierces it, like an adroit workman, he fixes it, as it were in a vice, in some cleft of a tree, or in some crevice; when, standing over it, he perforates the stubborn shell. We have often placed nuts in the chink of a gate-post where nut-hatches have been known to haunt, and have always found that those birds have readily penetrated them. While at work they make a rapping noise that may be heard at a considerable distance.
• 1786: May 27, 1786 – Mr Richardson came.
• 1784: May 27, 1784 – My great single oak shows many catkins.
• 1783: May 27, 1783 – Not one spring chafer this year.
• 1782: May 27, 1782 – Men have not been able to sow all their barley.
• 1780: May 27, 1780 – Large blue flag iris blows.  Flesh-flies abound.  Timothy the tortoise possesses a much greater share of discernment than I was aware of: & “.. is much too wise to go into a well;” for when he arrives at the haha, he distinguishes the fall of the ground, & retires with caution, or marches carefully along the edge: he delights in crawling up the flower-bank, & walking along it’s verge.
• 1778: May 27, 1778 – The missel-thrush sings much: his song is loud, & clear, but without any variety; consisting of only two or three wild notes.
• 1777: May 27, 1777 – Field crickets begin their shrilling summer sound.  My horses began to be turned-out a nights.
• 1775: May 27, 1775 – No thoro’ rain in this district since the 9, 10, & 11 of March.  The small ponds in the vales are now all dryed up, while the small ponds on the very tops of hills are but little affected.  can this difference be accounted-for from evaporation alone, which certainly is most prevalent in bottoms: or rather have not these elevated pools some unnoticed recruits by condensation, or some other secret means in the night time, so as to draw supplies to themselves from dews & mists, especially where trees over-hang?  Without a constant supply the cattle alone must soon drink them.  It must be allowed that in these parts the upland ponds have the most clayey, & holding bottoms: yet this advantage alone can never occasion the difference, the circumstance of cattle being considered.
• 1770: May 27, 1770 – Cold & dark.  Harsh, hazy day.
• 1769: May 27, 1769 – If the bough of a vine be cut late in the spring just before the shoots push out, it will bleed miserably; but after the leaf is out any part may be taken off without the least inconvenience.  So oaks may be barked while the leaf is budding; but as soon as they are expanded the bark will no longer part from the wood; because the sap, that lubricates the bark & makes it part, is evaporated off thro’ the leaves.

Notes:

The 1787 entry on nut-cracking methods is reproduced in Letter LVI of The Natural History of Selborne. A ‘haha’ is a kind of ditch in lieu of a fence that was fashionable in landscaping at this time, designed to blend invisibly into the landscape; this would be Timothy’s first spring in Selborne. The 1769 entry on ‘barking’ oaks– oak bark was used for its high concentration of tannins, in the production of leather. There’s some interesting further notes on appropriate seasons and methods for barking in this 1825 agricultural guide.

Paper wasp builds its nest from wood fibers, beautiful sequence by Alvesgaspar

• 1793: May 26, 1793 – The white pippin is covered with bloom.  Farmer Spencer’s apple-trees blow well.  Nep. Ben White, & wife left us.
• 1791: May 26, 1791 – Finished sowing kidney-beans, having used one quart, which makes five rows, half white & half scarlet.
• 1786: May 26, 1786 – Much gossamer.  The air is full of floating cotton from the willows.  There are young lapwings in the forest.  Female wasps about: they rasp particles of wood from sound posts & rails, which being mixed-up with a glutinous matter form their nests.  Hornets collect beech-wood.
• 1785: May 26, 1785 – Rose-fly, a green scarab.  Tho’ the stream has been dry for some time at Gracious street quite down to Kimber’s mead; yet, when it meets Well-head stream at Dorton, it is little inferior to that.  This shows that there are several springs along the foot of the short Lithe, as well as a constant one at Kimber’s.
• 1784: May 26, 1784 – Grasshopper lark in my outlet.
• 1783: May 26, 1783 – The frost cut down all the early kidney-beans, injured the annuals; & made the apple-trees cut much of their fruit.
• 1779: May 26, 1779 – The nightingale continues to sing; & therefore is probably building again.
• 1777: May 26, 1777 – The grass-hopper lark whispers in the night.
• 1776: May 26, 1776 – Fern-owl first seen; a late summer bird of passage.
• 1775: May 26, 1775 – We are obliged to water the garden continually.  Some wells dry.
• 1774: May 26, 1774 – Planted one of the ephrys nidus avis with a good root to it in my garden, under a shady hedge.  The shell of the martin’s nest begun May 16, is about half finished.
• 1770: May 26, 1770 – Caprimulgus sursurrat.  Chafers have not prevailed for some years as now– they seldom abound oftener than once in three or four years.  When they swarm so, they deface the trees & hedges.
• 1769: May 26, 1769 – Fern-owl chatters in ye hanger.

• 1793: May 25, 1793 – Cut down the greens of the crocus’s; they make good tyings for hops; better than rushes, more pliant, & tough.
• 1791: May 25, 1791 – Mole-cricket jars.  An old hunting mare, which ran on the common, being taken very ill, came down into the village as it were to implore the help of men, & dyed the night following in the street.
• 1790: May 25, 1790 – Sowed a specimen of some uncommon clover from farmer Street. Sowed a pint of large kidney beans, white: also Savoys, Coss lettuces, & bore-cole.
• 1788: May 25, 1788 – My winter lettuces all run-off to seed. The Culture of Virgil’s vines corresponds very exactly with the modern management of hops. I might instance in the perpetual diggings, & hoeings, in the tying to the stakes & poles, in pruning of the superfluous shoots &c.: but lately I have observed a new circumstance, which was Farmer Spencer harrowing the alleys between the rows of hops with a small triangular harrow, drawn by one horse, & guided by two handles. This occurrence brought to my mid the following passage:
  “.. ipsa/
  Flectere lucantis inter vineta juvencos.”        Second Georgic.
• 1786: May 25, 1786 – The prospect from my great parlor-windows to the hanger now beautiful: the apple-trees in bloom add to the richness of the scenery! the grass-hopper lark whispers in my hedges. That bird, the fern-owl, & the nightingale of an evening may be heard at the same time: & often the wood-lark, hovering & taking circuits round in the air at a vast distance from the ground.
  While high in the air, & pois’d upon its wings,/Unseen the soft, enamour’d wood-lark sings.
• 1785: May 25, 1785 – Wood-ruff blows.
• 1776: may 25, 1776 – The frost has killed the tops of the wallnut shoots, & ashes; & the annuals where they touched the glass of the frames; also many kidney-beans.  The tops of hops, & potatoes were cut-off by this frost.  Tops of laurels killed.  The wall-nut trees promised for a vast crop, ’til the shoots were cut off by ye frost.
• 1774: May 25, 1774 – The martins have just finished the shell of a nest left unfinished in some former year under the eaves of my stable.  Apis longicornis bores holes in the grass-walks.

Notes: Bore-cole: curly kale. From the Georgics of Virgil:

“Once you have set the seedlings, it remains to loosen the soil
Thoroughly at their roots, and ply the heavy hoe;
To discipline the soil with deep-pressed plough, and steer
Your straining oxen up and down the alleys of the vineyard.

The 1786 quotation is from White’s own “The Naturalist’s Summer Evening Walk”

Juvenile swift, photo by Jayleane

• 1792: May 24, 1792 – The old speckled Bantam sits on eight eggs.  Sorbus aucuparia, the Quickent-tree, or mountain-ash full of bloom.  The bunches of red berries would make a fine appearance in winter: but they are devoured by thrushes, as soon as they turn colour.  Tanner shot a hen Sparrow-hawk as she was sitting on her eggs in an old crow’s nest on one of the beeches in the High wood.  The bird fell to the ground, &, what was very strange, brought down with her one of the eggs unbroken.  The eggs of Sparrow-hawks, like those of other birds of prey, are round, & blunt-ended, & marked at one end with a bloody blotch.  The hen bird of this species is a fine large hawk; the male is much smaller, & more slender.  Hawks seldom build any nest.  This Hawk had in her craw the limbs of an unfledged lark.
• 1791: May 24, 1791 – Ophrys nidus avis blows in Comb-wood.  Rain is wanted.  Wheat looks yellow.
• 1789: May 24, 1789 – Dr Chandler by letter dated Rolle en Suisse April 4th 1789.  “The Swallows disappeared here about the end of September, 178, the weather being cold: but Oct 17th I saw a pair as we passed among the mountains towards Fort le Cluse on the road to Lyons; & my servant saw a pair on the 19th when we had got thro’ the mountains into Bresse.  Passing an islet of the Rhone Octr 23 near Pont St Esprit, again I saw a swallow, which dipped to drink.  As we approached nearer Marseilles, we saw wasps, dragon-flies, butter-flies, & other summer-insects.  I was ashore Novr 10 at Porto Longona, in the isle of Sr Elbe, off the coast of Italy, towards the evening.  Philip declared that a swallow had passed over his head, of which I doubted; but presently after saw three crossing the Port towards us.  They flew almost straight, very swiftly; & I should have supposed were going to Italy, if the distance had been less, or the Sun not so near setting.  Wasps were in full vigour, & numerous there.  I was assured by a friend at Rome, March 16, 1788, that he had seen swallows at Naples six weeks before.  Mr Morris informed me that martins had been busy under the eaves of the house, where he lodged, about a week.  I saw there, two days after, four nests which they had begun to repair, & on the 26th a couple of the birds: but Mr. M. declared that he had heard them twitter at least as early as the first of March.  The first swift I observed was over the river Liris on my return from Naples April 27th: Nightingales sung there.  On the 20th of last March Philip saw two martins about the lake of Geneva; & was assured by a man that he had seen them on the 18th.  On the 25th he saw several swallows; & supposes the martins to have perished with the cold, as they have not been seen since, & the weather has been bad.  They seem to have disappeared again, as I have not yet seen one.   I remarked bees, & a brimstone-butterfly, march 5th; & about the same time magpies building in the trees opposite to my windows.  I was told that a single martin commonly arrives first, as it were to explore; & again withdraws, as it were to fetch a colony.  Mr Morris, who has lived several years at Rome, related, that the boys there angle for the Swallows with a line at the end of a reed, & instead of a hook, a noose baited with a feather, & hung out at the corners of the streets.  Many are taken by this method, & carried home to be roasted & eaten; or to supply the markets, where they are commonly sold in season.  At Chamberry in Savoy I observed in the evening a joyous croud, & a great bustle.  My curiosity led me to see what […]
• 1787: May 24, 1787 – Bro: Ben cuts three rows of Lucern daily for his three horses: by the time that he has gone thro’ the plot the first rows are fit to be cut again.
• 1785: May 24, 1785 – Swifts copulate in the air, as they flie.
• 1784: May 24, 1784 – A pair of swifts frequent the eaves of my stable.  The birds soon forsook the place, & did not build.
• 1779: May 24, 1779 – Fiery lily blows: orange lily blows.
• 1775: May 24, 1775 – Thrushes now, during this long drought, for want of worms hunt-out shell-snails, & pick them to pieces for their young.  My horses begin to lie abroad.
• 1774: May 24, 1774 – Ophrys nidus avis  Bro Tomas.  This curious plant was found in bloom in the long Lythe among the dead leaves under the thickest beeches: & also among some bushes on Dorton.
• 1773: May 24, 1773 – Scotch and spruce firs beautifully illuminated by the male & female blossoms!
• 1769: May 24, 1769 – Thunder & rain in the night.  Fat sheep are shorn.  Young misslethrushes.

Notes:
Ophrys nidus avis, the bird’s nest orchid. Similiar to yesterday’s toadwort, a ground-dwelling parasite. The BBC has a nice short video on the plant, with a Gilbert Whiteish Alan Titchmarsh.

Many swifts in today’s edition. Although in White’s time the swift was classified as a hirundine with swallows and martins, this is a case of convergent evolution; though similar in form swifts are more closely related to that other extreme flyer, the hummingbird. Swifts live nearly their whole lives in the air, landing only to brood their young. Although like swallows their annual disappearance is down to epic migrations to southern Africa, swifts can to some extent enter a torpid state– no doubt Gilbert would be most gratified to hear that! For more on this fascinating little creature, check out CommonSwift.org; or see how you can help preserve the population with nest-boxes at London’s Swifts.

Lathraea squamaria, the toothwort, by Adlof Hansen(?), from Anton Kerner von Marilaun’s Pflanzenleben. A flowering parasite on tree roots, with no chlorophyll.

• 1791: May 23, 1791 – Brother Thomas White came.
• 1789: May 23, 1789 – White thorn blows.  The air is filled with floating willow-down.  Martins begin to build against the end of my brew-house.  Columbines blow.  N. Aurora.  Timothy the tortoise begins to travel about, & be restless.
• 1787: May 23, 1787 – A pair of red-backed Butcher-birds, lanius collurio, have got a nest in Bro: Tho: outlet.  They have built in a quickset-hedge.  We took one of the eggs out of the nest: it was white; but surrounded at the big end by a circle of brown spots, coronae instar.
• 1786: May 23, 1786 – Slipped-out the artichokes, & earthed them up.  Mrs Yalden left us.
• 1784: May 23, 1784 – Field-crickets cry, & shrill in the short Lythe.
• 1783: May 23, 1783 – Stocks blow, & are very double and handsome!
• 1776: May 23, 1776 – Female wasps abound.  Young rooks venture-out to the neighbouring trees.
• 1775: May 23, 1775 – Dutch-honeysuckles in high bloom.
• 1773: May 23, 1773 – Lathraea squammaria in seed.  Turtle-dove about.  Measles prevail in this neighbourhood.
• 1772: May 23, 1772 – Wryneck pipes.  The Ringmer-tortoise came forth from it’s hybernaculum on the 6th of April, but did not appear to eat ’til May the 5th it does not eat but on hot days.  As far as I could find it has no perceptible pulse.  The mole-cricket seems to chur all night.
• 1769: May 23, 1769 – Sultry.  Thunder at a distance.  Mole-cricket churs.  Not one chaffer appears yet.

Notes:
I think the 1772 entry might be the first mention of Timothy the tortoise– referred to as “the Ringmer tortoise” because Timothy was living with Gilbert’s aunt Mrs Snooke in the town of Ringmer until her death in 1780.

• 1793: May 22, 1793 – Neph. Ben. White, & wife came.
• 1792: May 22, 1792 – The Fly-catcher comes to my vines, where probably it was bred, or had a nest last year. it is the latest summer bird, & appears almost to a day! “Amusive bird, say where your snug retreat?”! The white apples are out of bloom, being forward, the Dearling, a late keeping apple, but just in bloom. So the earlier the fruit ripens the sooner the tree blossoms. The Dearling bears only once in two years, but then an enormous burthen. It has produced 10, & 13 bushels of fruit at a crop. The bloom this year is prodigious! [late note:] the crop moderate, & the fruit small.
• 1790: May 22, 1790 – Monk’s rhubarb in full bloom.
• 1789: May 22, 1789 – Hirundines keep out in the rain: when the rain is considerable.  Swifts skim with their wings inclining, to shoot off the wet.
• 1788: May 22, 1788 – Saint-foin & fiery lilly begin to blow.
• 1787: May 22, 1787 – Medlars blow.  Mushrooms in a bed under a shed in Brother Thomas’s garden.
• 1785: May 22, 1785 – Field-crickets cry round the forest.
• 1784: May 22, 1784 – Columbine & monkshoods blow.  The sycomores, & maples in bloom scent the air with a honeyed smell.  Lily of the valley blows.  Lapwings on the down.
• 1782: May 22, 1782 – Men pole their hops, which are backward, but strong.  Some hail.
• 1779: May 22, 1779 – Nightingales have eggs.  They build a very inartificial nest with dead leaves, & dry stalks.  Their eggs are of a dull olive colour.  A boy took my nest with five eggs: but the cock continues to sing: so probably they will build again.
• 1773: May 22, 1773 – May 12: First swifts were seen, many together.  On May 19 at night was a vast rain with thunder & lightening: frequent showers before & since; so that the ground is very moist; & the corn & grass grow.  The floods are much out at Staines.  In the beginning of the month there were frosts, hail, & some snow.  Apricots continue to fall off peaches, & nectarines decent crop.  Apples blow well: pears seem hurt by the frosts.  Vine-shoots very backward; they were pinched by the frost.
• 1772: May 22, 1772 – Tortoise eats.  Fly-catcher appears, and builds.
• 1769: May 22, 1769 – Flesh-flies buz about the room. Melon-fruit begins to blow.

Notes:
Gilbert is quoting himself in the 1792 entry, from his poem The Naturalist’s Summer Evening Walk. Excerpt:

Then be the time to steal adown the vale,
And listen to the vagrant cuckoo’s tale;
To hear the clamorous curlew call his mate,
Or the soft quail his tender pain relate;
To see the swallow sweep the dark’ning plain
Belated, to support her infant train;
To mark the swift in rapid giddy ring
Dash round the steeple, unsubdu’d of wing:
Amusive birds!- say where your hid retreat
When the frost rages and the tempests beat;
Whence your return, by such nice instinct led
When spring, soft season, lifts her bloomy head?
Such baffled searches mock man’s prying pride,
The God of Nature is your secret guide!

• 2009: May 20 – <?php OTDList(); ?>
• 1793: May 20, 1793 – Planted 30 cauliflowers brought from Mareland; & a row of red cabbages.  The ground is so glutted with rain that men can neither plow, nor sow, nor dig.
• 1792: May 20, 1792 – The missel-thrush has a nest on the orchard pear-tree.  The thunder of this evening burnt the barns, & out houses of a farm between Gosport & Titchfield, & destroyed eight fine horses.
• 1791: May 20, 1791 – The weather has been so harsh, that the swallows, & martins are not disposed to build.  Found a hen redstart dead in the walks.
• 1789: May 20, 1789 – Martins build briskly at the Priory, & in the street.  Oaks show prodigious bloom.
• 1788: May 20, 1788 – Fly-catcher begins to make a nest in my vine.
• 1787: May 20, 1787 – The red-start sits, & sings on the vane in Bro: Ben’s garden upon the top of an high elm.
• 1781: May 20, 1781 – Wheat very gross in some fields.
• 1776: May 20, 1776 – Wheat on the downs begins to spindle for ear.
• 1774: May 20, 1774 – Flycatcher appears: the latest summer-bird of passage.  The stoparola is most punctual to the 20th of May!!!  This bird, which comes so late, begins building immediately.
• 1770: May 20, 1770 – Rooks have carry’d off their young from the nest-trees.