The Natural History of Selborne

Wheat begins to come into ear: wheat, which was very yellow from the cold winds, by means of the heat has recovered it’s colour without the assistance of rain.  Dew, cloudless, sultry.  Red even, dead calm.  The lettuces, which stood under the fruit-wall thro’ the winter, are just over.  They have been of great service at the table now for many weeks.

Myriads of tadpoles travers Comb-wood pond in shoales:  when rain comes they will emigrate to land, & cover the paths & fields.  We draw much water for the garden, so that the well sinks. Flowers are hurried out of bloom by the heat;  spring-corn & gardens suffer.

Fern-owl, & chur-worm jar.  Men wash their fatting sheep; & bay the stream to catch trouts.  Trouts come up our shallow streams almost to the spring-heads to lay their spawn.

Bantam-hen brings out four chickens.

Went to London by Guilford & Epsom.  Spring-corn & grass look well.  Hay making near town.

After ewes & lambs are shorn there is great confusion & bleating, neither the dams nor the young being able to distinguish one another as before. This embarassment seems not so much to arise from the loss of the fleece, which may occasion an alteration in their appearance, as from the defect of that notus odor, discriminating each individual personally: which also is confounded by the strong scent of the pitch & tar wherewith they are newly marked; for the brute creation recognize each other more from the smell than the sight; & in matters of Identity & Diversity appeal much more to their noses than to their eyes. Thus dogs smell to persons when they meet, when they want to be informed whether they are stranger or not. After sheep have been washed, there is the same confusion, for the reason given above.

Bottled-out the port-wine which came here in October, but did not get fine.

John Carpenter brings home from the Plashet at Rotherfield some old chest-nut trees which are very long. In several places the wood-peckers had begun to bore them. The timber & bark of these trees are so very like oak, as might easily deceive an indifferent observer, but the wood is very shakey, & towards the heart cup-shakey, so that the inward parts are of no use. They were bought for the purpose of cooperage, but must make but ordinary barrels, buckets, &c. Chestnut sells for half the price of oak; but has some times been sent into the King’s docks, & passed off instead of oak.

Bror Benjn cuts his grass, clover & rye, a decent burden, but much infested with wild chamomile, vulg: margweed: mayweed.

Field-crickets shrill on the verge of the forest.  Cockoos abound there. Thinned the apricots, & took off many hundreds.