The Natural History of Selborne

Field crickets shrill.  Snipes in the forest.  The forest quite burnt-up.  Small reed-sparrow sings.  Young ring-doves fledge.  Hay is risen to four pounds per ton: no grass in the fields, & great distress among the cattle.

Some missle-thrushes on the down above us: blackbirds and thrushes mostly destroyed.

The grass still crips with white frost.  Tulips hang their heads in the morning, being pricked with the frost.

Birds silent for want of showers.  Acer majus in bloom.  The sycamore, when in bloom, affords great pabulum for the bees, & sends forth an honey-like smell.  All the maples have sccharine juices.

Pheasants crow.  Ring-doves coe.  Nect: & peaches swell.  Hops are poling.  The latest summer birds of passage generally retire the first: this is the case with the hirundo apis, the caprimulgus, & the stoparola.  Birds are never joyous in dry springs: showery seasons are their delight for obvious reasons.

The wolf-fly appears in windows, & pierces other flies with his rostrum: is of a yellow hue: an asilus of Linn.

Hot-beds never do so well in long dry fits of weather:  they do not ferment enough.  The hot dry weather hurries the flowers out of bloom.

Codlings blow.  Hot-beds want rain to make them ferment.

Grass-hopper-lark whispers.  The bombylius medius is much about in March & the beginning of April, & soon seems to retire.  It is a very early insecte.  Pulled won the old martins nests against the brew-house & stable: they get foul & full of vermin.  These abounded with fleas, & the cases of Hippoboscae hirundinis.  Besides while these birds are building they are much more in sight, & very amusing.

Mowed all round the garden.  Cut the first brace of cucumbers: they were well-grown.  Nightingale sings.