The Natural History of Selborne

Water frozen on my chamber-window.

Storm all night.  The may-pole is blown down.  Thatch & tiles damaged.  Great damage is done both by sea and land.

Several little black ants appear about the kitchen-hearth.  These must be the same that are seen annually in hot weather on the stairs, with which somehow they have communication thro’ a thick wall, or under the pavement, into the middle of the house.

Wheat grows much.  Grass grows.

Vast flocks of fieldfares.  Are these prognostic of hard weather?

Peter Wells’s well at Gracious street begins to run over.  The lavants rise at Faringdon.

Warm fog, small rain.  Vast condensation: the trees on the down, & hanger run in streams down their bodies.  Walls sweat.  The dew this morning was on the outsides of the windows a token that the air was colder within than without.

My well is risen very much.

Finished trimming & tacking my vines: the wood is pretty well ripened for next year.  Not withstanding the vehemence of last summer, & the lasting heat, yet my grapes were not so early nor so well ripened as in some moderate years.  In particular in 1775 my crops began to be gathered the first week in Septemr: & were in high perfection all the autumn: whereas this year we could not gather at all  ’til Octobr & then the flavour was not delicate & many clusters never ripened at all.  A proof this that somewhat more is requisite in the production of fine fruits than mere heat.  My peaches & nectarines also this summer were not in such perfection as in some former seasons.

Phalaneae flie in abundance about my hedges: those & some others, such as spiders, wood-lice, slippery jacks, & some gnats, & tipulae come forth all the winter in mild weather.