This week in 1777
29th June
Snails engender.
30th June
The pair of martins that began their nest near the stair-case window on June the 21: finished the shell this day. About the beginning of July, a species of Fly (Musca) obtains, which proves very tormenting to horses, trying still to enter their nostrils, and ears, & actually laying their eggs in the latter & perhaps in both of those organs. When these abound, horses in wood-land districts become very impatient with their work, continually tossing their heads & rubbing their noses on each other, regardless of the driver: so that accidents often ensue. In the heat of the day, men are often obliged to deist from plowing: saddle-horses are also very troublesome in such season. Country-people call this insect the nose fly. In the decline of the year when the mornings & evenings become chilly, many species of flies (muscae) retire into houses, & swarm in the windows. At first they are very brisk & alert: but as they grow more torpid, one cannot help observing that that they move with difficulty, & are scarce able to lift their legs, which seem as if glued to the glass: and by degrees many do actually stick on till they die in the place. Now as flies have flat skinny palms, or soles to their feet, which enable them to walk on glass & other smooth bodies by means of the pressure of the atmosphere; may not this pressure be the means of their embarrassment as they grow more feeble; ‘til at last their powers become quite inadequate to the weight of the incumbent air bearing hard on their more languid feet; & so at last they stick to the walls & windows, where they remain, & are found dead.
1st July
Hay in a bad way. Hops look well. Some labourers digging for stone found in an hole in the rock a red-breast’s nest containing one young cuckow half-fledged. The wonder was how the old cuckow could discover a nest in so secret, & sequestered a place.
2nd July
The first swallows, perchers, appeared this day. The apis longicornis do not bore many holes in the walks this cold wet season.
3rd July
If the weather was favourable the solstitial flowers would now make a gaudy show in the garden.
4th July
New moon. Some white cucumbers seem to be set. The vines begin to blow. They blowed in 1774 June 26: in 1775 June 7: & in 1776 June 25.
5th July
My building is interrupted. Bad weather for the blowing of the wheat. Annuals suffer. Birds are very voracious in their squab-state, as appears from the consequences of eating which they eject from their nests in marvelous quantities: as they arrive so rapidly at their full maturity, much nutrition must be wanted.