Gilbert White

1776: Grey, windy, soft & agreeable. Now my grapes are delicate notwithstanding the summer was so wet & shady.

1776: Nuts fall very fast from the hedges.

1776: One swallow.

1776: Gathered some keeping-apples. The intercourse between tups and ewes seems pretty well over. Ewes go, I think, 22 weeks.

1776: Numbers of swallows & martins playing about at Faringdon, & settling on the trees. If hirundines hide in rocks & caverns, how do they, while torpid, avoid being eaten by weasels & other vermin?

at the little end, as a man does with his knife. The nut-hatch sometimes splits the shell, & somtimes picks an irregular hole in it's side.

1776: Black snails are more sluggish than in the summer; but in sight all day at this season of the year. Rooks steal wallnuts off the trees. Some wallnut trees naked of leaves. Saw one hornet. When mice eat nuts, they perforate a round hole in the shell: but squirrels split their nuts in halves...

1776: Beans are housed. One swallow. Apples are gathered. Ivy continues to blow. Bat is out.

1776: Beautiful wheat season for the wet fallows. The buzzard is a dastardly bird, & beaten not only by the raven, but even by the carrion-crow. Gathered baking-pears.

1776: Wasps seem to be quite suppressed; yet butterflies, & muscae remain. Some swallows above the hanger.

1776: Swallows & martins, before they withdraw, not only forsake houses, but do not frequent the villages at all: so that their intercourse with houses is only for the sake of breeding.

1776: Martins, but no swallows. Bat appears.

1776: Nothing left abroad but seed-clover, & a few beans.

1776: Some swallows. Martins abound. The quantities of haws, & sloes this year are prodigious. Those hives of bees that have been taken have proved deficient in wax, & honey. In shady wet summers bees can scarce procure a store sufficient to carry them thro' the winter: if not fed they perish.

1776: Martins abound: few swallows to be seen. Planted a row of lettuces under the fruit-wall to stand the winter.

1776: Some swallows remain.

1776: Fine young clover & fine turneps about the country.

1776: Sun, soft sweet day, rock-like clouds on the horizon. Much barley housed at Newton. Gathered the first grapes: they are small but good.

1776: Wasps still go into the hives. Gathered-in some of the early pippins: fine baking apples.

1776: The ring-ouzel appears on it's autumnal visit.

not seem to inhabit beneath the vegetable mould.

1776: Grapes very backward. Much barley housed. Large earth-worms now abound on my grass-plot, where the ground was sunk more than a foot. At first when the earth was removed, none seemed to remain: but whether they were bred from eggs that were concealed in the turf, is hard to say. Worms do...

1776: Ivy beings to blow. Swallows & Martins still abound. Peaches, & nect: rot. Wasps are busy still.

1776: Much barley out round Basingstoke: some standing: & many fields of oats. Green wheat up.

1776: The ground full of water. Wagtails join with hirundines, & pursue an hawk high in the air: the former shew great command of wing on the occasion.

1776: Great quantities of after-grass. Hops damaged by wind & wet. Much barley still out.

1776: Stoparolae still. Distant lightening.

1776: Swallows catch at walls as they flie about. Much distant thunder & lightening.

1776: Swallows cluster, & hang about in a particular manner at this season of the year. Much corn housed. Honey-bees swarm by thousands, & devour the peaches, & nectarines. Stoparolae still appear.

1776: My muscle-plums are in much more perfection this year than any other fruit. Corn housed.