The Natural History of Selborne

Brother Thomas White, & daughter, & little Tom came.

Scarce a hirundo has been seen about this village.

Timothy the tortoise beings to eat dandelion.

Showers, windy.  One beech in the hanger shows some foliage.

This morning I saw a certificate from the town of Wymburn Mistner in the country of Dorset to the parish of Selborne, acknowledging William Dewye to be parishioner of the said town.  This paper is dated Apr. 20, 1729: so that Will: Dewye, & wife, both still living, have been certificate people here exactly 60 years.

Swallows & martins do not yet frequent houses.  Women hoe wheat.

Young broods of goslings.  Wood-sorrel, & anemony blow.  The cuckoo cries along the hanger.  Wheat thrives.

Apricots set very fast.  The willows in bloom are beautiful.  Men pole their hops: barley is sowing at the forest side.  Several swallows, h. martins, & bank-martins play over Oakhanger ponds.  The horses wade belly deep over those ponds, to crop the grass floating on the surface of the water.

The vines of John Stevens, which were trimmed late, not till March, bleed much; & will continue to do so until the leaf is fully expanded.  It is remarkable, that tho’ this is the case while the trees are leafless, yet lop them as much as you please when the foliage is out, they will not shed one drop.  Dr Hales was not acquainted with this circumstance when he cut-off a large bough of his vine at Teddington late in the spring; & it was lucky for science that he was not.  For his sollicitude for his vine, & his various attempts to stop the effusion of the sap, led him step by step to many expedients, which by degrees brought on the abundance of curious experiments, & ended in that learned publication known by the name of Vegetable Statics, a work which has done much honour to the Author, & has been translated into many modern languages.

Five gallons of french brandy from London.  Cucumbers show fruit in bloom.  Cuculus cuculat: the voice of the cuckoo is heard in Blackmoor woods.  Sowed hollyhocks, columbines, snapdragons, stocks, mignonette, all from S. Lambeth, in a bed in the garden: also sweet williams, & Cantebury bells.