The Natural History of Selborne

• 1790: December 31, 1790 – Total of rain in 1790, 32 inch. 27 h.
• 1789: December 31, 1789 – Storm in the night, that blew down my rain-measurer.  The newspapers say that there are floods on the Thames.
• 1785: December 31, 1785 – Snow covers the ground.
• 1784: December 31, 1784 – Much snow on the ground.  My laurel-hedge, & laurustines, quite discoloured, & burnt as it were with the frost.
• 1783: December 31, 1783 – Ice under people’s beds.  Water bottles burst in chambers.  Meat frozen.  The fierce weather drove the snipes out of the moors of the forest up the streams towards the spring-heads.  Many were shot round the village.
• 1782: December 31, 1782 – Baromr in 1782 at S. Lambeth.
  lowest April 1………… 28:5-10;
  highest Nov 13 ………….. 30: 13-20 or 6 1/2;
  Therm: lowest Feb 12 ……………. 23;
  highest June 18 ……………….. 81
• 1776: December 31, 1776 – A grosbeak was shot near the village.  They sometimes come to us in the winter.
• 1775: December 31, 1775 – The country-people, who are abroad in winter-mornings long before sun-rise, talk of much hard frost in some spots, & none in others.  The reason of these partial frosts is obvious: for there are, at such times, partial fogs about: where the fog obtains little or no frost appears; but where the air is clear there it freezes hard.  So the  frost takes place either on the hill or in dale, where every the air happens to be clearest, & freest from vapour.  Hyrn, cornu vel angulus: whence our Faringdon Hyrn, or hern as we pronounce it, is the corner-field of our parish.  Heane, Humilis: hence perhaps our honey-lane.  Our Gally-hill, is perhaps gallows hill from Galga, crux.  Does not domesday book among other privileges, say that Priors & c. were allowed Furcas, gallows?  By, habitation: from whence ye adjective Byn, as Binsted, &c.  Deortun, saltus: hence no doubt our Dorton, a wild, bushy common just below the village: Deerton, a place where deer are kept.  Eowod, Ovile: hence perhaps our field called the Ewel?  Ymbhanger the winding hanger: we have places so named.  Rode, crux: hence our Rode-green near the Priory, where probably a cross was erected.  Fyrd, a ford; also a camp: hence probably our high common-field to the N.W. is called the fordown.  Ether, sepes: the top border that binds down our hedges & keeps them together is called by our hedgers ether to this day: the wickering the top along they call ethering.  Gouleins (Gothic) salutatio: hence perhaps our word Golly, a sort of jolly kind of oath, or asservation much in use among our carters, & lowest people.  Eorthwicga, blatta terrana: hence our absurd word, not peculiar to this district: earwig.
• 1773: December 31, 1773 – Frost all day.
• 1768: December 31, 1768 – A wet season began about the 9th of June, which lasted thro’ haymaking, harvest, & seed-time, & did infinite mischief to the country.  It appears from my Brother Barker’s instrument, with which he measures the quantity of rain, that more water fell in the county of Rutland in the year 1768 from Jan. the 1 to Dec 31 than in any other Calendar year for 30 years past; viz. 30 1/2 inches.  A mean year’s rain in Rutland is about 20 3/4 inches.

Notes:

Brother Barker was White’s brother-in-law, married to his sister Anne. The lengthy entry on possible Saxon roots for local place-names is one of the few indications in the journals that White was almost as keenly interested in local history– what would have been called “Antiquarianism”– as he was in natural history. The full title of The Natural History of Selborne is in fact The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne, although the letters concerning the antiquities are often omitted from modern editions of the book, lacking as they are in the vividness of direct observation that makes White’s writing so timeless; although they do have a hobbity charm of their own.Here is a nice article on the first grammar of Anglo-Saxon, with observations on the antiquarian spirit.