The Natural History of Selborne

The tortoise in Mrs Snooke’s garden went under ground Novr 21: came-out on the 30th for one day, & retired to the same hole lies in a wet border in mud & mire!  with it’s back bare.  In the late floods the water at Houghton ran over the clappers, & at Bramber into men’s ovens.

Not one wheat-ear to be seen on the downs.  The grubs of the scarabaeus solstitialis abound on the downs: the rooks dig them out.  On what do they feed when they come forth?  for there are no trees on the South downs.

Birds on the downs are rooks, larks, stone-chats, kites, gulls: some field-fares, some hawks.