The Natural History of Selborne

The Well is now so low, that Thomas found some difficulty in getting water sufficient to Brew with.

Fly-catchers seem to be gone; they breed but once.

The boys destroyed a hornets nest: it was but small.  Ophrys spiralis, ladies traces, seed.

Thunder & lightening in all quarters round.  The spring called Well-head sends forth now, after a severe hot dry summer, & dry spring & winter preceeding, nine gallons of water in a minute; which is 540 in an hour; & 12960, or 216 hogsh. in 24 hours, or one natural day.  At this time the wells are very low, & all the ponds in the vales dry.

Timothy the tortoise dull & torpid.

Beans heavy.

Bean-harvest & vetch harvest.

Red-breasts feed on elder-berries, enter rooms, & spoil the furniture.  Bror. T. & M. came to Selborne.  Timothy, whose appetite is now on the decline, weighs only 7 pounds & 3/4 of an ounce:  at Midsummer he wighed 7 ae 1 oun.

Red-breasts whistle agreeably on the tops of hop-poles, &c., but are prognostic of autumn.  Young fern-owl.

Dines at Bramshot-place.