The Natural History of Selborne

A good crop of rye-grass in the field sown last year; but the white clover takes only in patches.  Sowed 4 pounds more of white clover, & a willow basket of hay-seeds. [Later note] The white clover since is spread all over the field.

The swifts which dashed-by on saturday last have not appeared since; & were therefore probably on their passage.

Shower of snow.  The snow lay but a small time.  Began to turn my horses into my field lain down last year with rye-grass & dutch-clover.  Wheat looks wretchedly.

A pair of Creepers (Certhia) build at one end of the parsonage-house at Greatham, behind some loose plaster.  It is very amusing to see them run creeping up the walls with the agility of a mouse.  They take great delight in climbing up steep surfaces, & support their progress with their tails, which are long, & stiff, & inlcined downwards.

Two swifts seen at Puttenham in Surrey.  Bank-martins on the heaths all the way to London.

Five long-legged plovers, charadrius himantopus, were shot at Frinsham-pond.  There were three brace in all.  These are the most rare of all British birds.  Their legs are marvellously long for the bulk of their bodies.  To be in proportion of weight for inches the legs of Flamingo should be more than 10 feet in length.

Opened the leaves of the Apricot-trees, & killed many hundreds of caterpillars which infest their foliage.  These insects would lay the tree bare.  They roll the leaves up in a kind of web.  N.B. By care & attention the leaves were saved this year.

Hail, stormy, strong wind. The wind broke-off the great elm in the churchyard short in two: the head of which injured the yew-tree. The garden is much damaged by the wind. Many tulips & other flowers are injured by the hail. The lighting on friday morning shivered the masts of the Terrible man of war in Portsmouth harbour. The field-crickets in the short Lithe have cast their skins, are much encreased in bulk, show their wings, being now arrived in *maturity*. ‘Til this alteration they are in their pupa-state, but are alert, & eat; yet cannot chirp, nor propagate their kind.

The caterpillars of some phalaenae attack the foliage of the apricots again.

Lathraea squammaria, in the Church-litten coppice near the bridge among the hasel-stems, is out of bloom.