The Natural History of Selborne

The China hollycocks in my strong soil grow too tall, & are just beginning to blow.  Began to light fires in the parlor.

Finished a Bostal, or sloping path up the hanger from the foot of the zigzag to the corner of the Wadden, in length 414 yards. A fine romantic walk, shady & beautiful.  In digging along the hanger the labourers found many pyrites perfectly round, lying in the clay; & in the chalk below several large cornua Ammonis.

Moles live in the middle of the hanger.

When people walk in a deep white fog by night with a lanthorn, if they will turn their backs to the light they will see their shades impressed on the fog in rude, gigantic proportions.  This phenomenon seems not to have been attended to; but implies the great density of the meteor that juncture.

Hornets settle on the mellow fruit among the honey-bees & carry them off.

Timothy eats heartily.

When we call loudly thro’ the speaking-trumpet to Timothy, he does not seem to regard the noise.

The Antirrhinum cymbalaria is grown to an enermous size, extending itself side-ways 15 or 16 feet, & 7 or 8 in height!!  It grows on the water-table of a N.W. wall of my house, & runs up among the shoots of a Jasmine.

Timothy still feeds a little.  Ophrys spiralis, Ladies-traces, blows pentifully in the long lithe, & on the common near the beechen-grove.

The motions of Timothy the tortoise are much circumscribed: he has taken to the border under the fruit-wall, & makes very short excursions: he sleeps under a Marvel of Peru.  Lapwings frequent the upland fallows.