The Natural History of Selborne

The swifts seem for some days to have taken their leave.  Apricots.  None seen after that time.

Several birds begin to resume their spring notes, such as the wren, redbreast

On this day at 10 in the morning some sober & intelligent people felt at Noar hill what they thought to be a slight shock of an earthquake.  A mother and her son perceived the house to tremble at the same time while one was aboe stairs & the other below; & each called to the other to know what was the matter.   A young man, in the field near, heard a strange rumbling.  Notwithstanding the long severe drought the little pond on the common contains a considerable share of water in spite of evaporation, & the multitude of cattle that drink at it.  Have ponds on such high situations a power, unkown to us, of recruiting from the air? Evaporation is probably less on the tops of hills; but cattle use a vast proportion of the whole stock of water in a small pond.

Cloudless, sultry, dark.

Some few wasps begin to appear.

Wheat-harvest becomes pretty general.  Barom. sinks & rises to it’s former pitch.

An autumnal coolness begins to take place, morning and evening.

Fog, sun, & brisk wind, serene. Ripening weather. Young martins (the first brood) congregate and are very numerous; the old ones breed again.

Wheat begins to be cut. Not a breath of air.  The nights are hot.

Young black-caps abound, & eat the rasps. Trimmed the vines of their side-shoots.