The Natural History of Selborne

Men have not been able to sow all their barley.

Men pole their hops, which are backward, but strong.  Some hail.

Tortoise eats the leaves of poppies.

Fly-catcher appears.  When this bird is seen the naturalist hopes the summer is established.

Fern-owl chatters.  A pair of white owls breed under Mr Yalden’s roof of his house: they get in thro’ the leaden-gutter that conveys the water from the roof to the tank.  They have eggs.  About this time many swallows were found dead at & about Fyfield: some were fallen down the chimnies, & some were lying on the banks of brooks, & streams.  Swifts kept-out all day, playing about in the rain: they seem to be more than 20 in number.  Rain with wind they avoid, & are not seen in such weather.

Peach & Nect. bloom scarce over yet: no fruit seems to be set.  Vine-buds do not open at all.  One of my neighbours, an intelligent, & observing man informs me, that about ten minutes before 8 o’clock in the eveing he discovered a great cluster of house swallows, 30 at least he supposes, perching on a willow that hung over the verge of James Knight’s upper pond.  His attention was first drawn by the twittering of these birds, which sate motionless in a row on the bough, with their heads all one way, & by their weight pressing down the twig so that it nearly touched the water.  In this situation he watched them ’till he could see no longer.  Repeated accounts of this sort spring & fall induce us greatly to suspect that house swallows have some strong attachement to water independent of the matter of food; & that, if they do not retire into that element, they conceal themselves in the banks of pools & rivers during the uncomfortable months of winter.

An uncommon, & I think a new little bird frequents my garden, which I have great readon to think is the Pettichaps.  It is common in some parts of the kingdom,  & I have received formerly several dead specimens from Gibraltar.  It much resembles the white throat, but has a more white, or rather silvery breast & belly; is restless & active like the willow-wrens, hopping from bough to bough, & examining every part for food. It also runs up the stems of the crown-imperials, & putting its head into the bells of those flowers, sips the liquor contained in the nectarium of each petal.  It sometimes feeds like the hedge-sparrow, hopping about on the grass-plots & mown walks.

14 or 16 swifts.  The tortoise weighs 6 ae 11 oun. 2dr.  He weighed Spring 1781, 6:8:4 & May 1780, 6:4:0.

Vegetation is at a stand, & Timothy the tortoise fast asleep.  The trees are still naked.

Two swifts at Nore hill passed by me at a steady rate towards this village as if they were just arrived.

One beech in the Lith, which is always forward, in full leaf.  The beeches in the hanger are naked, but the buds are opening.  Nightingale sings in my fields; but no cuckow is heard.  Sowed the dug plot in the great mead with carrots.