The Natural History of Selborne

Bright, sunny, soft.

Arrangement of parts is both smell & color: thus a sweet, & lovely flower when bruized both stinks & looks ugly.  We may add that arrangement of parts is also flavor: since muddled liquors & frozen meats immediately lose it.

A profusion of turneps probably all the kingdom over: on which account lean sheep are very dear.  Hops at present lie on hand: were carried to Weyhill, then to Andover: & now are bringing home again.  Snow gone except under hedges.  Birds do not seem to touch the berries of the tamus cummunis ‘tho they look very red, & inviting: the berries also of the bryonia alba seem not to be meddled with.  Perhaps they are too acrid.  There is a fine crop of clover of last spring: the frequent showers of last summer occasioned also a vast growth of grass.

Considerable snow on the ground.

Finished the levelling, & turfing of garden.  The alteration has a good effect.  The weather & rains considered, the turf lies pretty well.

While my people move earth in the garden the redbreasts in pursuit of worms are very tame, & familiar, settling on the very wheel-barrows, while filling.

Beautiful rimes all day on the hanger.

Yellow water wagtail.

Ring-ouzels still remain.  Gathered in the last grapes: ye crop was very large, & the grapes delicate.  And yet the vine-shoots were much pinched at their tops by frost the first week in May; & more-over Septemr was a season of continual clouds & rain. Ring-ouzels, & stone-curlews stay late with us this year.

Stone Curlews appear still on Temple farm.