The Natural History of Selborne

Pig and piglets, T. Bewick

• 1793: May 17, 1793 – Set the second Bantam hen over the saddle cup-board in the stable with eleven dark eggs.
• 1792: May 17, 1792 – Sowed some Nasturtion seeds on the bank. Mr Charles Etty returns from Madras well in health, & not lame from the accident of breaking his leg; but thinner than he was. He went first to Bengal, & so home in a Danish India man.
• 1791: May 17, 1791 – Fly-catcher returns.  The fern-owl, or eve-jar returns, & is heard in the hanger.  These birds are the last summer-birds of passage: when they appear we hope the summer will soon be established.
• 1789: May 17, 1789 – The mice have infested my garden much by nestling in my hot-beds, devouring my balsoms, & burroughing under my cucumber-basons: so that I may say with Martial…. “Fines Mus populatoru, & colono /Tanquam Sus Calydonius temetur.”  Epigramm: XIX. lib. XI.
• 1786: May 17, 1786 – Timothy Turner’s Bantham sow brings 20 pigs, some of which she trod-on, & overlaid; so that they were soon reduced to 13.  She has but 12 teats.  Before she farrowed her belly swept on the ground.
• 1783: May 17, 1783 – Wells sink: Benham’s is dry.  Sprinkled & washed the foliage of the fruit-trees, that were honey-dewed, & began to be affected with aphides.  Stocks blow finely.  Tulips, thro’ heat, will continue but a small time in bloom.
• 1777: May 17, 1777 – Sun, fine day, showers.  Most vivid rainbow.
• 1774: May 17, 1774 – Rooks bring out their young: they & the crows, & daws & ravens, frequent the top of the hanger, & prey on chafers.
• 1772: May 17, 1772 – Very little barley above ground.
• 1770: May 17, 1770 – No redstarts whistle yet about the village.

Notes:
I can find no references anywhere to what a "Bantham pig" is, short of a pig from Bantham, Devon; there is a reference to a Bantam pig in Swift's The Metamorphosis of the Town, where it is stuffed with ambergis and served with bird's nest soup, among other mad delicacies. I believe the Martial epigram reads, "My borders a mouse ravages, and is feared by the tenant as much as a Caledonyan boar," although I could be mistaken, it's suprisingly hard to find translations of Martial online.

• 1793: May 16, 1793 – Sowed-in the three-light annual frame African & French marigolds, China asters, pendulous Amaranths, Orange-gourds.  Took the blackbird’s nest the second time; it had squab young.
• 1791: May 16, 1791 – Saw a flie-catcher in the vicarage, I think.
• 1790: May 16, 1790 – One polyanth-stalk produced 47 pips or blossoms.  Mrs Edmund White brought to bed of a boy, who has encreased the number of my nephews & nieces to 56.  The bloom of apples is great: the white pippin, as usual, very full.  It is a most useful tree, & always bears fruit.  The dearling in the meadow is loaded with fruit :last year it produced only one peck of apples, the year before 14 bushels.  [*later note]  This year it bore 10 bush. of small fruit.  The white pippin produced a good crop again this year: the apples of this tree come in for scalding, & pies in August.
• 1787: May 16, 1787 – Agues abound around S. Lambeth.  Cucumbers not plenty.
• 1784: May 16, 1784 – Sultry.  Left off fires in the parlor.  So much sun hurries the flowers out of bloom.  Flesh-files begin to appear.
• 1780: May 16, 1780 – Wheat looks somewhat yellow.  Men sow barley: but the ground is cold, & cloddy.
• 1778: May 16, 1778 – Nightingales visit my fields & sing awhile: but withdraw, & travel on: some years they  breed with me.
• 1774: May 16, 1774 – A pair of martins began building their nest against my brew-house.
• 1772: May 16, 1772 – 20 horses with vast labour cannot on moderate ground sow more than three acres of barley in a day, instead of seven or eight.  The ground wants endless rolling & dragging.  the drought has lasted one month.
• 1771: May 16, 1771 – Hanger in leaf this day yesterday but a few trees were green.  Trees & hedges in general begin to leaf.
• 1770: May 16, 1770 – Mole-cricket churs.

• 1791: May 15, 1791 – Flesh flies get to be troublesome: hung out the meat-safe.  Mrs Clements &c. left us.
• 1790: May 15, 1790 – Timothy the tortoise weighs 6 ae 12 oz. 14 drs.
• 1789: May 15, 1789 – Caught a mouse in the hot-bed: cut several cucumbers, but they are ill-shapen.
• 1788: May 15, 1788 – Sheared my white mongrel dog rover, & made us of his white hair in plaster for the ceilings.  His coat weighted four ounces.  The N.E. wind makes Rover shrink.  A black bird has made a nest in my barn on some poles that lie on a scaffold.
• 1786: May 15, 1786 – Timothy began to march about at 5 in the morning.
• 1784: May 15, 1784 – The tortoise is very earnest for the leaves of poppies, which he hunts about after, & seems to prefer to any other green thing.  Such is the vicissitude of matters where weather is concerned, that the spring, which last year was unusually backward, is now forward.
• 1781: May 15, 1781 – Killed some hundreds of shell-less snails about the garden.  The boys every day kill some large wasps, that feed on the sycamore-bloom, on the Plestor.  Several small wasps appear as well as large breeders.
• 1772: May 15, 1772 – The country dry as powder.
• 1771: May 15, 1771 – Vines begin to sprout, & shew leaves.  Distant thunder, & showers about.
• 1770: May 15, 1770 – Chafers begin to abound.  Grass-hopper lark chirps.
• 1769: May 15, 1769 – The ground dryed-up in a very extraordinary manner.  Much barley lying in the dust without vegetating.  Apple-trees well blown.  Grass very short.

• 1793: May 14, 1793 – Timothy travels about the garden.
• 1785: May 14, 1785 – My fields have more grass than my brother’s at S. Lambeth, which burn.  My St foin looks well, & is grown.  Ponds in bottoms are dry.  Our down burn brown.
• 1784: May 14, 1784 – Swallows build.  They take up straws in their bills, & with them a mouthful of dirt.  Fern-owl churs.  The bark of felled oaks runs remarkably well; so that the barkers earn great wages.
• 1783: May 14, 1783 – Sowed a crop of kidney-beans.  large white Dutch.  Planted some basons in my field with China-asters, & China pinks.  Pricked out many China asters, on a mild hot-bed.  Honey-suckles stocks, & wall-flowers smell sweetly.  Tulips blow out but their cups will be much larger.  The large Apricot-tree much infested with maggots, which twist & roll-up the leaves; these we open, & destroy the maggots, which would devour most of the foliage.  These maggots are the produce of small spotted phalaenae.
• 1782: May 14, 1782 – Tortoise eats the leaves of poppies.
• 1781: May 14, 1781 – The hops wanted rain, & began to be annoyed by the aphides.  The ground finely refreshed.  Vast rocklike, distant clouds.
• 1776: May 14, 1776 – Spring-corn in a sad state, not half come up.
• 1775: May 14, 1775 – Two pairs of nightingales in my fields.  The country strangely dryed-up.  Fine showers about last friday.
• 1774: May 14, 1774 – Swifts have encreased to their usual number of about eight of nine pairs.
• 1769: May 14, 1769 – One shower only for a full month.
• 1768: May 14, 1768 – Returned to Selborne.  Melon-fruit in bloom.  A brace of sand-pipers (tringa minor) at James Knight’s ponds.

• 1793: May 13, 1793 – Two nightingales sing in my outlet.  Foliage of trees expands very fast.  Peat begins to be brought in: it is in good condition.  H. martins build.  The old Bantam hen began to sit in the barn on eleven eggs.  The fern-owl, or churn-owl returns, & chatters in the hanger.
• 1792: May 13, 1792 – Mrs Ben White came.
• 1791: May 13, 1791 – Ashen shoots injured by the late frosts, & kidney-beans & potatoe-sprouts killed.
• 1790: May 13, 1790 – Bro. Tho. came from London.
• 1789: May 13, 1789 – Nep Ben & wife left us.  Great tempest at Winchester.
• 1787: May 13, 1787 – Ice at Nore-hill.  Tulips make a show.
• 1786: May 13, 1786 – The wind beats the buds off the trees, & blows the cabbages out of the ground.  The planet Venus appears.  On this day my niece Clement was brought to bed of her fifth child, a boy, who makes my 44th nephew, & niece, all now living.
• 1785: May 13, 1785 – The country strangely burnt-up.
• 1784: May 13, 1784 – Cut the first bundle of asparagus.
• 1782: May 13, 1782 – Fly-catcher appears.  When this bird is seen the naturalist hopes the summer is established.
• 1781: May 13, 1781 – The rain last night broke the stems of several of the tulips, which are in full bloom.  The rain from the S.
• 1780: May 13, 1780 – Vines are backward in their shoots, but show rudiments of fruit.  The cores of the spruce-firs, produced last year, now fall.  After a fast of 7, or 8 months, the tortoise which in Oct. 1779 weighted six pounds 9 oun: & 1/2 averdupoise, weighs now only 6 pounds 4 ounces.  Timothy began to break his fast May 17 on the globe-thistle, & American willow-herb; his favourite food is lettuce, & dandelion, cucumber, & kidney-beans.
• 1775: May 13, 1775 – Papilio Atalanta.  This is an autumnal fly, & therefore must appear at this season by accident.  Fine rains about the kingdom; but little to the advantage of our district.  At Lyndon in Rutland, the first swallow was seen April 14: first swift April 29: first H. martin May 6.
• 1774: May 13, 1774 – Crows bring out their young in troops.  Horses begin to lie abroad.
• 1772: May 13, 1772 – Musca vomitoria.  Maon’s morter frozen.  Wheat looks yellow.  Fruit-trees of all sorts blow much.  Chill air.
• 1771: May 13, 1771 – Swallows & martins collect dirt for building.  Regulus non crist: major cantat voce stridula locustae.  Usually a late bird of passage.  The horizon looks dark & louring.
• 1770: May 13, 1770 – Fly-catcher, Stoparola, of Brit: zool: appears.  Sedge-bird, Passer arundinaceus minor, Sedge-bird of Brit: zool sings.

• 1793: May 12, 1793 – The merise, or wild cherry in beautiful bloom.
• 1792: May 12, 1792 – An army of caterpillars infest my young goose-berry trees, which were planted this spring: & the case is the same at Dr Chandler’s.  Thomas picked the trees carefully, & gave them a good watering.
• 1790: May 12, 1790 – The rhubarb tart good, & well-flavoured.
• 1788: May 12, 1788 – Fern-owl chatters: it comes early this year.
• 1787: May 12, 1787 – House martin appears: only one.
• 1786: May 12, 1786 – The water-ouzel is living, & recovered of its wound.
• 1785: May 12, 1785 – Dragon-flies come out of their aurelia-state.  Great bloom of apples round S. Lambeth.
• 1784: May 12, 1784 – There seem to be two, if not three nightingales in my outlet.
• 1782: May 12, 1782 – 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.
• 1781: May 12, 1781 – My well sinks very fast: indeed much water has been drawn lately for watering.  Mr Yalden’s tank is almost dry.
• 1780: May 12, 1780 – The missel-thrush drives the mag-pies, & Jays from the garden.  Lettuces that stood the winter come into use.  Hops are poled, but make weak shoots.
• 1776: May 12, 1776 – The sycamore or great maple, is in bloom, & at this season makes a beautiful appearance, & affords much pablum for the bees, smelling strongly like honey.  The foliage of this tree is very fine, & very ornamental to outlets.
• 1775: May 12, 1775 – Fern-owls chatter in the highwood & hanger.
• 1774: May 11, 1774 – Swallows & house-martins begin to collect dirt for building.  The swallow carries straws to mix with it.  Chafers swarm.
• 1772: May 12, 1772 – The sedge-bird sings: variety of notes, but it’s manner is hurrying.
• 1771: May 12, 1771 – Ground very moist.  Barley, & all spring-corn come up well.  Vast Aurora in the N.E. and S.W. & all round.

• 1791: May 11, 1791 – The down of willows floats in the air, conveying, & spreading about their seeds, & affording some birds a soft lining for their nests.
• 1788: May 11, 1788 – In some districts chafers swarm: I see none at Selborne.  Cotton blows from the willows, & fills the air: with this substance some birds line their nests.  Mr Burbey’s brown owl, which was a great washer, was drowned at last in a tub where there was too much water.
• 1785: May 11, 1785 – Severe drying exhausting drought.  Cloudless days.  The country all dust.  Timothy the tortoise weighs 6 ae 11 13/4 oz.  He spoils the lettuce under the fruit-wall: but will not touch the Dutch, while he can get at any coss.
• 1784: May 11, 1784 – Sowed sweet alyssum in basons on the borders.  Wheat improves very much: the women weed it.
• 1782: May 11, 1782 – 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.
• 1781: May 11, 1781 – Fern-owl chatters.  When this bird is heard, summer is usually established.
• 1780: May 11, 1780 – Tortoise moves about, but does not feed yet.
• 1774: May 11, 1774 – Pulled the first lettuces, brown Dutch, which had stood the winter under the fruit-wall: they begin to loave.
• 1772: May 11, 1772 – The sedge-bird sings: variety of notes, but it’s manner is hurrying.
• 1771: May 11, 1771 – Cherry-trees begin to blossom.  The sedge bird, Passer arundinaceus minor, of the Brit: zool sings about waters: variety of notes; but the manner is hurrying.

• 1793: May 10, 1793 – Missel thrushes do not destroy the fruit in gardens like the other species of turdi, but feed on the berries of missel toe; & in the spring on ivy berries which then begin to ripen.  In the summer, when their young become fledge, they leave neighbourhoods, & retire to sheep walks, & wild commons.
• 1792: May 10, 1792 – Peat cart begins.
• 1790: May 10, 1790 – The Bantam hen hatches seven chickens.  Young red-breasts.  Made some tarts with the stalks of the leaves of the garden, or Monks rhubarb.  Only three swifts; one was found dead in the church-yard.
• 1789: May 10, 1789 – Nep. Ben came.  The beeches on the hanger, now in full leaf, when shone down on by the sun about noon, exhibit the most lovely lights & shades, not to be expressed by the most masterly pencil.  The hops are infested by the Chrysomela oleracea, called by the country people the turnip-fly, or black dolphin, which eats holes in their leaves.  This species is– “saltatoria, femoribus posticis carssissimis”:– “chrysomelae saltatoria plantarum cotyledonibus, & benellis foliis infestae sunt.” Linn:
• 1787: May 10, 1787 – Farmer Spencer’s orchard in fine bloom.
• 1786: May 10, 1786 – The grass is long enough to wave before the wind.  Wheat turns some what yellow.
• 1784: May 10, 1784 – The blackbirds & thrushes are so reduced by the severe weather, that I have seen in my out-let only one of the former, & not one of the latter; not one missle-thrush.
• 1782: May 10, 1782 – 14 or 16 swifts.  The tortoise weighs 6 ae 11 oun. 2dr.  He weighed Spring 1781, 6:8:4 & May 1780, 6:4:0.
• 1781: May 10, 1781 – A small sort of caterpillar annoys the goose-berry trees.
• 1780: May 10, 1780 – Stormy all night.  Tortoise scarce moves during this wet time.  Tremella nostoc abound on the grass walks.
• 1777: May 10, 1777 – The scenes round the village are beautifully diversifyed by the bloom of the pear-trees, plums, & cherries.  A great flood on the Thames in consequence of the rain on friday night.
• 1776: May 10, 1776 – Apis longicornis.  This bee appears, but does not bore nests in the ground yet.
• 1772: May 10, 1772 – Drought has lasted three weeks this day.
• 1771: May 10, 1771 – Fly-catcher.  This bird is usually the last of the summer birds of passage.

• 1793: May 9, 1793 – The mag-pies, which probably have young, are now very ravenous, & destroy the broods of Missel-thrushes, tho’ the dams are fierce birds, & fight boldly in defence of their nests.  It is probably to avoid such insults, that this species of thrush, tho’ wild at other times, delights to build near houses, & in frequented walks, & gardens.
• 1792: May 9, 1792 – Still for the first time since May 1st.  Chalk cart.
• 1790: May 9, 1790 – Master Trimming is taken with the smallpox.  Timothy the tortoise eats dandelion leaves & stalks: he swallows his food almost whole.
• 1786: May 9, 1786 – Timothy, contrary to his usual practice, lies out all day in the rain.
• 1785: May 9, 1785 – The grass in my Brother’s fields burns, & does not look so well as it did when I came.
• 1775: May 9, 1775 – The long rows of tulips make a gallant shew.
• 1774: May 9, 1774 – Chafers have not been plenty since the year 1770.  Eights swifts now appear they arrive in pairs.  Martins encrease.  Hanger almost in full leaf.  Chafers in vast numbers. Regulus non cristatus major,  shaking it’s wings it makes at intervals a sibilous stammering noise on the tops of the tallest beechen-woods: it abounds in the beechen-woods on the Sussex down where the two other species are never heard.  It spends it’s time on the tops of the tallest trees.  The caprimulgus is the last bird of passage but one: the stoparola is the last.  The house-martin begin to build as early, as when it arrives early.  It came very late.
• 1771: May 9, 1771 – Summer-like weather.  Some beeches begin to leaf.
• 1770: May 9, 1770 – Nightingales in my outlet.  A brace of green sandpipers at James Knight’s ponds.  Tringa Aldrov: tringa ochropus Lin:
• 1769: May 9, 1769 – Green geese are driven along the streets in great droves.

Notes:
Tringa ochropus, the green sandpiper. The notation "Linn:" in entries refers to Linnaeus' classifications-- availble online from the Natural History Museum. "Chafer" or Maybug, a pest that will loom throughout this month's entries. Regulus non cristatus major-- the willow wren.

• 1792: May 8, 1792 – On this day 26 houses, besides a number of barns, stables, granaries, &c. were burnt down at Barton-Stacey near Winchester.  Only ten or twelve houses were preseved, among which is the parsonage, a large farm house, & some others out of the line of the street.  The people of Selborne subscribed 6 ae. 1 s. 0 d. on this occasion: the county collection was very large & ample.
• 1790: May 8, 1790 – Began to mow the orchard for the horses.
• 1789: May 8, 1789 – Cut the first mesh of asparagus.  The bloom of plums is very great.  Peat-carting begins.
• 1786: May 8, 1786 – Plolyanths make a fine show.  Pastures yellow with bloom of dandelion, & with cowslips.
• 1785: May 8, 1785 – There is a great want of rain in France as well as in England.  A cuckow haunts my brother’s fields; so that probably there will be a young cuckow hatched in the quickset-hedge.  Millions of empedes, or tipulae, come forth at the close of day, & swarm to such a degree as to fill the air.  At this juncture they sport & copulate: as it grows more dark they retire.  All day they hide in hedges.  As they rise in a cloud they appear like smoke: I do not remember to have seen such swarms except in the fens of the Island of Ely.  They appear most over grass-mounds.
• 1784: May 8, 1784 – Auricula’s blow finely in the natural ground.  Owls have eggs.  The hanger almost all green.  Many trees in the Lythe in full leaf.  Beeches on the common hardly budding.
• 1783: May 8, 1783 – Apple-trees in high bloom; in danger from the frost.
• 1781: May 8, 1781 – Timothy lies close this cold weather.
• 1780: May 8, 1780 – The Lathraea squammaria grows also on the bank of Trimming’s orchard, just above the dry wall, opposite Grange-yard.
• 1779: May 8, 1779 – 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.
• 1778: May 8, 1778 – Sowed the Ewel-close, now barley, with 12 pounds of white clover, two bushels of Rye-grass, & a quarter of meadow-grass seeds from a farmer’s hay-loft.  The ground is too wet, & will not harrow well.  Strong wheat-land.
• 1774: May 8, 1774 – White-throat warbles softly.  Mistake: it was the black-cap: whitethroats are always harsh & unmusical.
• 1772: May 8, 1772 – Fields & gardens suffer by the severe harsh winds.  Farmers in stiff ground can sow no barley: not one grain is yet sown on Newton great farm.
• 1771: May 8, 1771 – Asparagus begins to sprout.
• 1769: May 8, 1769 – Green goose-berries.  Lapwing’s eggs at the poulterers.