The Natural History of Selborne

Happy Birthday Gilbert White!

• 1792: July 18, 1792 – Men cut their meadows.  Mr Churton came.
• 1790: July 18, 1790 – Mrs Clement & daughters came.
• 1788: July 18, 1788 – Fly-catcher feeds his sitting hen, Mrs H.W., Bessy, & Lucy came.
• 1786: July 18, 1786 – Gathered & preserved some Rasps.
• 1785: July 18, 1785 – Savoys & artichokes over-run with aphides.  The Fly-catcher in the vine sits on her eggs, & the cock feeds her.  She has four eggs.
• 1781: July 18, 1781 – Bramshot-place
  Lapwings haunt the uplands still.  Farmers complain that their wheat is blited.  At Bramshot-place, the house of Mr Richardson, in the wilderness near the stream, grows wild, & in plenty, Sorbus aucuparia, the quicken-tree, or mountain-ash, Rhamnus frangula, berry-bearing alder; & Teucrium scorodonia, wood-sage, & whortle-berries.  The soil is sandy.  In the garden at Dowland’s, the seat, lately, of Mr Kent, stands a large Liriodendrum tulipifera, or tulip-tree, which was in flower. The soil is poor sand; but produces beautiful pendulous Larches.  Mr R’s garden, tho’ a sand, abounds in fruit, & in all manner of good & forward kitchen-crops.  Many China-asters this spring seeded themselves there, and were forward; some cucumber-plants also grew-up of themselves from the seeds of a rejected cucumber thrown aside last autumn.  The well at Downland’s is 130 feet deep; at Bramshot place..  Mr R’s garden is at an average a fortnight before mine.
• 1778: July 18, 1778 – We have never had rain enough to lay the dust since saturday June 13: now five weeks.  By watering the fruit-trees we have procured much young wood.  The thermometer belonging to my brother Thomas White of South Lambeth was in the most shady part of his garden on July 5th & July 14th: up at 88, a degree of heat not very common even at Gibraltar!! July 5: Thermr at Lyndon in Rutland 85.
• 1777: July 18, 1777 – Swifts dash & frolick about, & seem to be teaching their young the use of their wings.  Thatched my rick of meadow-hay with the damaged St foin instead of straw.  Bees begin gathering at three o’clock in the morning: Swallows are stirring at half hour after two.
• 1773: July 18, 1773 – Lound thunder shower.  Mrs Snooke of Ringmere near Lewes had a coach-horse killed by this tempest: the horse was at grass just before the house.
• 1772: July 18, 1772 – Frequent sprinklings, but not enough all day to lay the dust.  The dry fit has lasted six weeks this day.
• 1769: July 18, 1769 – Moor-buzzard, milvus aeruginosus, has young.  It builds in low shrubs on wild heaths.  Five young.
• 1768: July 18, 1768 – The country is drenched with wet, and quantities of hay were spoiled.