The Natural History of Selborne

There is a great want of rain in France as well as in England.  A cuckow haunts my brother’s fields; so that probably there will be a young cuckow hatched in the quickset-hedge.  Millions of empedes, or tipulae, come forth at the close of day, & swarm to such a degree as to fill the air.  At this juncture they sport & copulate: as it grows more dark they retire.  All day they hide in hedges.  As they rise in a cloud they appear like smoke: I do not remember to have seen such swarms except in the fens of the Island of Ely.  They appear most over grass-mounds.

Pastures yellow with dandelions.  Meadow-foxtail grass, alopercurus pratensis, in bloom.

Blanchard & Miss Simonet ascended.

The dust on the roads insufferable!  Saw one swift.  Two house-martins in Fleet street.

Quick-set hedges look green.  Roads are choaked with dust.  Swallows frequent houses: some sit & dress themselves on trees, as if wet, & dirty.

My brother Thom. made his melon-bed.  Red-start sings.

Radishes dry, & hot.

My brother Tho: planted his potatoes.  He sowed purple broccoli.  My brother cut four cucumbers.  His plants, & Benjamin’s, are strong, & in good order.

The large shivering willow-wren.  The Cuckow is heard this day.

Hot sun. Muddy sky. Goose-berries & honey-suckles begin to bud, & look green. Pronged the asparagus beds. My fine jasmine is dead. Timothy the tortoise roused himself from his winter-slumbers & came forth. He was hidden in the laurel-hedge under the wall-nut tree, among the dead leaves.