The grey crow, a bird of winter passage, appears. It is as rare at Selborne, as the carrion crow is in Sweden. This is only the third bird that I have seen in this district. They are common on the downs at Andover, & Winton. The air is unusually damp, with copious condensations on the walls, wainscot, looking-glasses, &c, of houses, in many places running in streams.
Very dark season: dark within doors a little after 3 o’clock in the afternoon.
Many phalanae appear. Strange that these nocturnal lepidoptera should be so alert, at a season when no day papilios appear, but have long been laid-up for the winter. Trees will not subsist in sharp currents of air: thus after I had opened a vista in the hedge at the E. corner of Baker’s hill, no tree that I could plant would grow in that corner: & since I have opened a view from the bottom of the same field into the mead, the ash that grew in the hedge, & now stands naked on the bastion, is dying by inches, & losing all it’s boughs. Phalaene appear about hedges in the night time the winter thro’.
A flight of woodcocks about in the country.
The high glass brings no good weather: Baromrs usually dote, & are mistaken about this time of year.
Saw yesterday a considerable flock of gulls flying over the hanger to the S.W. Gulls very seldom appear in this district; except sometimes on the forest ponds. * When horses, cows, sheep, deer, &c. feed in the wind, & rain, they always keep their heads down the wind, & their tails to the weather; but birds always perch, & chuse to fly, with their heads to the weather to prevent the winds from ruffling their feathers, & the cold & wet from penetrating their skins.
Charadrius pluvialis. Green whistling plovers appear: they come in the autumn to us, but do not breed here. They haunt the downs.
Grapes are delicate still; especially those that are not bagged in crape those that are, are shrivelled, & vapid. *The great month for spring migration is April: tho’ the wryneck, one species of willow-wren, & the upland curlew are seen in March: in this month also the winter birds retire. In Sept. most of the short-winged summer birds withdraw; & in Oct the wood-cock, redwing, & fieldfare return. The hirundines are more irregular in their retreat; for the Swift disappears in the beginning of August: the rest of the Genus not ’til Oct.: In Nov the wood-pigeons, & wild fowls return. We have found in the parish of Selborne alone about 120 species of birds, which are more than half the number that belong to Great Britain in general; & more than half as many as Linnaeus can produce in the kingdom of Sweden. Mr Pennant enumerates 227 species in Gr. Britain, & Linnaeus about 221 in his native country.
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