July 1
Posted by sydney on Jul 1st, 2009
- 1792: July 1, 1792 – There is a natural occurance to be met with upon the highest part of our down on hot summer days, which always amuses me much, without giving me any satisfaction with respect to the cause of it; & that is a loud audible humming of bees in the air, tho’ not one insect is to be seen. This sound is to be heard distinctly the whole common through, from the Money-dells, to Mr White’s avenue-gate. Any person would suppose that a large swarm of bees was in motion, & playing about over his head. This noise was heard last week on June 28th.
“Resounds the lving surface of the ground,Nor undelightful is the ceasless humTo him who muses… at noon.”“Thick in yon stream of light a thousand was,Upward, and downward, thwarting, & convolv’d,The quivering nations sport.”
Thomson’s Seasons - 1791: July 1, 1791 – Large American straw-berries are hawked about which the sellers call pine-strawberries. But these are oblong, & of a pale red; where as the true pine or Drayton straw-berries are flat, & green: yet the flavour is very quick, & truly delicate. The American new sorts of strawberries prevail so much, that the old scarlet, & hautboys are laid aside, & out of use.
- 1789: July 1, 1789 – London
The price of wheat rises on account of the cold, wet, ungenial season. The wet & wind injures the bloom of the wheat. - 1785: July 1, 1785 – Timothy Turner cuts the St foin on Baker’s hill: this is the 18th crop; & not a bad one, the severity of the drought considered. My balsams are fine tall plants, & well-variegated, except a few, which blow white.
- 1783: July 1, 1783 – Thatched the hay-rick. Mr & Mrs Brown & Niece Anne Barker left me. Tremendous thunder-storms in Oxford-shire & Cambridge-shire!
- 1782: July 1, 1782 – The crop of carrots in the great meadow will be good.
- 1781: July 1, 1781 – Wheel round the sun.
- 1781: July 1, 1781 – The red valerians, roses, iris’s, corn-flags, honey-suckles, &c., make a gallant shew. Most of the pinks were destroyed in the winter by the hares. We put Timothy into a tub of water, & found that he sunk gradually, & walked on the bottom of the tub: he seemed quite out of his element, & was much dismayed. This species seems not at all amphibious. Timothy seems to be the Testudo Graeca of Linnaeus. Dr Chandler who saw the operation, says there is a species of tortoise in the Levant that at times frequents ponds & lakes: and my Bro: Jonh White, affirms the same of a sort in Andalusia.
- 1778: July 1, 1778 – The meadow-rick sinks fast.
- 1777: July 1, 1777 – Some laboureres digging for stone found in an hole in the rock a red-breast’s nest containing one young cuckow half-fledged. The wonder was how the old cuckow could discover a nest in so secret, & sequestered a place.
- 1776: July 1, 1776 – Full moon. Cherries begin to ripen, but are devoured by sparrows. Began to cut my meadow-hay, a good crop, one 3rd more than last year.
- 1775: July 1, 1775 – On the 28 of June a large quantity of trufles were found near Andover, near two months sooner than the common season. So these roots are in season nine months at least.
* House-snails seem to be so checked by the drought, & destroyed by the thrushes, that hardly one annual is eaten or injured. When earth-worms like-out a nights on the turf, though they extend their bodies a great way, they do not quite leave their holes, but keep the ends of their tails fixed therein; so that on the least alarm they can retire with precipitation under the earth. Whatever food falls within their reach when thus extended they seem to be content with, such as blades of grass, straws, fallen leaves, the ends of which they often draw into their holes. Even in copulation their hinder parts never quit their holes ; so that no two, except they lie within reach of each others bodies, can have any commerce of that kind; but as every individual is an hermaphrodite, there is no difficulty in meeting with a mate; such as would be the case were they of different sexes. - 1774: July 1, 1774 – Swifts, I have just discovered, lay but two eggs. They have now naked squab young, & some near half-fledged: so that their broods cannot be out ’til toward the middle or end of July, & therefor can never breed again before the 20th of August. In laying but two eggs, & breeding but once they differ from all our other hirundines. Scarabaeus solstitialis. The appearance of this insect commences with this month, & ceases at the end of it. These scarabs are the constant food of caprimulgi the month thro’.
* When Oaks are quite stripped of their leaves by cahfers, they are cloathed again soon after mid-summer with a beatiful foliage: but beeches, horse-chest-nuts, & maples, once defaced by those insects, never recover their beauty again for the whole season. - 1773: July 1, 1773 – Portugal-laurel blows in a most beautiful manner.
- 1772: July 1, 1772 – Watered the pease. Some nectarines and peaches, two or three apricots, few apples and pears. Small walnuts fall off by thousands. Few nuts. Chilly.
- 1771: July 1, 1771 – Cut part of the mead: a good crop. Young goldfinches.
- 1770: July 1, 1770 – Cuckow sings. Quail calls. Wheat begins to blow.
- 1769: July 1, 1769 – Fine haymaking: hay-cargin. Young hedge-hogs are frequently found, four or five in a litter. At five or six days old their spines, (which are then white) grow stiff enough to wound any body’s hands. They, I see, are born blind, like puppies; have small external ears; & can in part draw their skins down over their faces: but are not able to contract thenselves into a ball, as they do for defence when well-grown.
- 1768: July 1, 1768 – Great storm of thunder and lightening. Tiled the succades.
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