The Natural History of Selborne

The planet Mars figures every evening & makes a golden & spendid shew. This planet being in opposition to the sun, is now near us, & consequently bright.

House-martins abound at Lipock.

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.

The sparrow-hawks continue their depredations.

Wheat-harvest begins at Headley.

The farmers complain of smut in their wheat.

The hay that is down is now entirely spoiled.  These soft rains sop & drench everything.  A young man brought me a live specimen of a Papilion Machaon, taken below Temple.  The first specimen that ever I saw of that species in these parts was in my own garden in last Augt. 2nd.

Trenched-out celeriac, & some of the new-advertized large celeri. Planted out some endive. A pair of house-martins, that built under the eaves of my stable, lost their nest in part by a drip, just as most of the young were flown. They are now repairing their habitation in order to rear a second brood.

Timothy the tortoise, who weighed April 2: after fasting all the winter on six pounds 8 oun. & 3/4: weighs now seven pounds, & one ounce: weighed last august six pounds, & fifteen ounces. From the encreased number of the Swifts, it seems as if they had brought out many of their young. About eight in the evening, Swifts get together in a large party, & course round the environs of the church, as if teaching their broods the art of flying. As yet they do not retire ’til three quarters after 8 o’ the clock; & before they withdraw, the bats come forth: so that day & night animals take each others places in a curious succession! All the swifts that play around the church do not seem to roost under it’s eaves. Some pairs, I know, reside under some of the cottage roofs. Three or four pairs of lapwings hatched their broods this summer on the common: the young, which run long before they can flie, sculk among the fern. The usually affect low, moist situations.

Brisk gale.  The wheat, in large fields, undulates before the gale in a most amusing manner.