August 7th

1778 - Selborne, Hampshire

A good ornithologist should be able to distinguish birds by their air as well as by their colours and shape; on the ground as well as on the wing, and in the bush as well as in the hand.. For, though it must not be said that every species of birds has a manner peculiar to itself, yet there is somewhat in most genera at least, that at first sight discriminates them, and enables a judicious observer to pronounce upon them with some certainty.

Gilbert White
(Gilbert White (18 July 1720 – 26 June 1793) - letter to Daines Barrington. White was a pioneering naturalist and ornithologist, born in his grandfather's vicarage at Selborne in Hampshire. He is best known for his The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne (1789). )

August 4th

1802 - Wasdale, Cumberland

Wed. Afternoon ½ past 3, Augt. 4th. 1802 —
Wastdale, a mile & half below the Foot of the Lake, at an Alehouse without a Sign, 20 strides from the Door, under the Shade of a huge Sycamore Tree, without my coat — but that I will now put on, in prudence—yes here I am and have been for something more than an hour, & have enjoyed a good Dish of Tea (I carried my Tea & sugar with me) under this delightful Tree. In the House there are only an old feeble Woman, and a 'Tallyeur' Lad upon the Table — all the rest of the Wastdale World is a haymaking, rejoicing and thanking God for this first downright summer Day that we have had since the beginning of May. — And now I must go & see the Lake for immediately at the Foot of the Lake runs a low Ridge so that you can see nothing of the Water till you are at it's very Edge.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (21 October 1772 – 25 July 1834) was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was one of the founders of the Romantic Movement in England and one of the Lake Poets.

August 1st

1802 - Keswick, Cumberland

On Sunday Augt. 1st — VQ after 12 I had a Shirt, cravat, 2 pair of Stockings, a little paper & half a dozen Pens, a German Book (Voss's Poems) & a little Tea & Sugar, with my Night Cap, packed up in my natty green oil-skin, neatly squared, and put into my net Knapsack and the Knap-sack on my back & the Besom stick in my hand, which for want of a better, and in spite of Mrs C. & Mary, who both raised their voices against it, especially as I left the Besom scattered on the Kitchen Floor, off I sallied — over the Bridge, thro' the Hop-Field, thro' the Prospect Bridge at Portinscale, so on by the tall birch that grows out of the center of the huge Oak, along into Newlands — Newlands is indeed a lovely Place — the houses, each in it's little Shelter of Ashes & Sycamores, just under the Road, so that in some places you might leap down on the Roof, seemingly at least — the exceeding greenness & pastoral beauty of the Vale itself, with the savage wildness of the Mountains, their Coves, and long arm-shaped & elbow-shaped Ridges — yet this wildness softened down into a congruity with the Vale by the semicircular Lines of the Crags, & of the bason-like Concavities. The Cataract between Newlands & Kescadale had but little water in it of course, was of no particular Interest...

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (21 October 1772 – 25 July 1834) was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was one of the founders of the Romantic Movement in England and one of the Lake Poets.

July 13th

1866 - Midhurst, West Sussex

...I know now too what a tinkling brook is.

Gerard Manley Hopkins
(Gerard Manley Hopkins, (28 July 1844 – 8 June 1889) was an English poet and Jesuit priest whose 20th-century fame established him posthumously among the leading Victorian poets.)

July 8th

1773 - Selborne, Hampshire

Selborne,July 8,1773
Some young men went down lately to a pond on the verge of Wolmer-forest to hunt flappers, or young wild-ducks, many of which they caught, and, among the rest, some very minute yet well-fledged wild-fowls alive, which upon examination I found to be teals. I did not know till then that teals ever bred in the south of England, and was much pleased with the discovery: this I look upon as a great stroke in natural history.

Gilbert White
(Gilbert White (18 July 1720 – 26 June 1793) - letter to Daines Barrington. White was a pioneering naturalist and ornithologist, born in his grandfather's vicarage at Selborne in Hampshire. He is best known for his The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne (1789). )

July 7th

1866 - Oxfordshire

July 7. Fine.—Passing cloud-shadows soaking the woods. Pleasant precision of hay-cocks and swathes with shadow on one side. Bleached look of uncut fields. Those ox-eye-like flowers in grain fields smell deliciously. Strange pretty scatter-droop of barley ears, their beards part outside like the fine crispings of smooth running water on piers etc. Holding one up to the sky so that the top hairs should be about horizontal (the rest following their radiation down to the ear itself, which would hang down) noticed the instant after removing it a tiny needle-like sort of rain in the air at right angles of course to the line of the spikes. Whiteness of the pine-buds. Lombardy poplars built high and with dice-like leaves. Soar of the poplar.

Gerard Manley Hopkins
(Gerard Manley Hopkins, (28 July 1844 – 8 June 1889) was an English poet and Jesuit priest whose 20th-century fame established him posthumously among the leading Victorian poets.)

July 6th

1866 - Oxfordshire

July 6. Hard thunder-showers, fine between, passing clouds. Sun coming out after one of these showers in morning hotly made ground smoke, gravel as well as lawn, some time. Lawn shews half-circle curves of the scythe in parallel ranks. Beeches seen from behind the house scatter their tops in charming tufted sheep-hooks drooping towards each other and every way. Layers or shelves of the middle cedar not level but in waved lips like silver plate. Soft vermilion leather just-budded leaves on the purple beech, and the upper sprays ruddy in the sunlight: whole effect rich, the leaves too being crisply pinched like little fingered papers....

Gerard Manley Hopkins
(Gerard Manley Hopkins, (28 July 1844 – 8 June 1889) was an English poet and Jesuit priest whose 20th-century fame established him posthumously among the leading Victorian poets.)

June 24th

1822 - Hempstead, Kent, & Chesham, Buckinghamshire.

Kensington, June 24,1822

Set out at four this morning for Redbourn, and then turned off to the Westward to go to High Wycombe, through Hempstead and Chesham. The wheat is good all the way. The barley and oats good enough till I came to Hempstead. But the land along here is very fine: a red tenacious flinty loam upon a bed of chalk at a yard or two beneath, which, in my opinion, is the very best corn land that we have in England. The fields here, like those in the rich parts of Devonshire, will bear perpetual grass. Any of them will become upland meadows. The land is, in short, excellent, and it is a real corn-country. The trees from Redbourn to Hempstead are very fine; oaks, ashes, and beeches. Some of the finest of each sort, and the very finest ashes I ever saw in my life. They are in great numbers, and make the fields look most beautiful. No villanous things of the fir-tribe offend the eye here...

Chesham is a nice little town, lying in a deep and narrow valley, with a stream of water running through it. All along the country that I have come, the labourers' dwellings are good. They are made of what they call brick-nog (that is to say, a frame of wood, and a single brick thick, filling up the vacancies between the timber. They are generally covered with tile. Not pretty by any means; but they are good; and you see here, as in Kent, Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire, and, indeed, in almost every part of England, that most interesting of all objects, that which is such an honour to England, and that which distinguishes it from all the rest of the world, namely, those neatly kept and productive little gardens round the labourers'1 houses, which are seldom unornamented with more or less of flowers. We have only to look at these to know what sort of people English labourers are....

William Cobbett
(William Cobbett (9 March 1763 – 18 June 1835) was an English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist, who was born in Farnham, Surrey.)

May 20th

1799 - Nether Stowey, Somerset

The nightingales in a cluster or little wood of blossomed trees, and a bat wheeling incessantly round and round! The noise of the frogs was not unpleasant, like the humming of spinning wheels in a large manufactory,—now and then a distinct sound, sometimes like a duck, and sometimes like the shrill notes of sea-fowl.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (21 October 1772 – 25 July 1834) was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was one of the founders of the Romantic Movement in England and one of the Lake Poets.

May 18th

1872

Saturday, 18 May
Hay Fair still going on. To get out of the sight and sound of it I went up the unfrequented path from Penllan to the Wern below Gwernfydden to look for bog beans to give to Mrs. Venables on Whitsun Day. The marshy ground was thick with the trefoil bean leaves, but not a blossom had yet opened. I found a gate beside a sheltered hedge, in a sunny nook convenient for reading, and returning to the village I climbed Penllan again with that charming book Lettice Lisle* and established myself in my sunny corner on the gate sheltered from the East wind by the high green hedge and secure from intrusion on a path that led to nowhere and therefore sacred from the folks returning from the fair. It was a quiet peaceful beautiful place. There was no sound to be heard but the singing of the birds, and nothing to be seen but the blue mountains rising over the sunny golden green oaks of Penllan Wood and the blue sky above all. No living thing seemed to be moving except a rising lark and a small blue butterfly which fluttered along the sunny side of the hedge. Presently as I sat perfectly still upon the gate reading I heard a sharp little rustling in the hedge close by me as if some small fourfooted animal were bustling busily about. In a minute or two afterwards came out of the bank on to the open path before the gate a beautiful little creature coloured a deep rich chestnut red except its throat and belly which were pure white. It carried in its mouth a mouse or a young rat. Apparently it did not see me. At all events he took no notice and was not the least startled. He passed under the gate carrying the mouse and went into the hedge on the opposite side of the path. But he did not seem to know what to do with the mouse and soon came out again, still carrying it in his mouth. I made a slight noise on purpose and the weasel dropped his prey on the path and retreated into the hedge. I got down off the gate, picked up the mouse and placed it a few feet further off in front of the gate and then resumed my seat to watch the result. The weasel was not at all abashed. He came to the mouth of the hole in the hedge, rested his little forepaws upon a bit of stick, stood up, and looked round him with his quick brilliant watchful eyes to see what had become of his mouse. Then the beautiful slender creature came out upon the path and began darting about like lightning trying to discover his prey by scent. I never saw any living thing move with such extraordinary swiftness.
The mouse was only 3 or 4 feet from him, but the weasel could not see it, and as I had lifted the mouse from the ground he could not follow it along the earth by scent. So he was completely at fault. He must have been extraordinarily blind or shortsighted. After darting about on the path close by the gate for a few minutes the weasel gave up the search and went back into the original hedge to hunt another mouse and I heard him rustling and bustling about in the bank for some time after.

Rev. Francis Kilvert
Robert Francis Kilvert (3 December 1840–23 September 1879), diarist and Rcetor, was born near Chippenham, Wiltshire, His diaries, reflecting rural life in the 1870s, were first published over fifty years after his death.

May 14th

1802

May 14th, Friday. A very cold morning—hail and snow showers all day. We went to Brother's wood, intending to get plants, and to go along the shore of the lake to the foot. We did go a part of the way, but there was no pleasure in stepping along that difficult sauntering road in this ungenial weather. We turned again, and walked backwards and forwards in Brother's wood. William teased himself with seeking an epithet for the cuckow. I sate a while upon my last summer seat, the mossy stone. William's, unemployed, beside me, and the space between, where Coleridge has so often lain. The oak trees are just putting forth yellow knots of leaves. The ashes with their flowers passing away, and leaves coming out. The blue hyacinth is not quite full blown; gow-ans are coming out, marsh marigolds in full glory; the little star plant, a star without a flower. We took home a great load of go wans, and planted them in the cold about the orchard. After dinner, I worked bread, then came and mended stockings beside William; he fell asleep. After tea I walked to Rydale for letters. It was a strange night. The hills were covered over with a slight covering of hail or snow, just so as to give them a hoary winter look with the black rocks. The woods looked miserable, the coppices green as grass, which looked quite unnatural, and they seemed half shrivelled up, as if they shrank from the air. O, thought I! what a beautiful thing God has made winter to be, by stripping the trees, and letting us see their shapes and forms. What a freedom does it seem to give to the storms! . . .

Dorothy Wordsworth - Grasmere
(Dorothy Wordsworth (25 December 1771 – 25 January 1855) was an English author, poet and diarist. She was the sister of the Romantic poet William Wordsworth, and the two were close for all of their lives.)

May 10th

1866 - Oxfordshire

May 10. Ascension Day. Walked alone to Fyfield or rather to a step beyond the great elm (perhaps the greatyest I have ever seen) and made a sketch at the turning point....
...Children with white rods beating bounds of St. Michael's parish.

Gerard Manley Hopkins
(Gerard Manley Hopkins, (28 July 1844 – 8 June 1889) was an English poet and Jesuit priest whose 20th-century fame established him posthumously among the leading Victorian poets.)

May 3rd

1866 - Oxfordshire

MAY 3, Cold. Morning raw and wet, afternoon fine. Walked then with Addis, crossing Bablock Hythe, round by Skinner's Weir through many fields into the Witney road. Sky sleepy blue without liquidity. From Cumnor Hill saw St. Philip's and the other spires through blue haze rising pale in a pink light. On further side of the Witney road hills, just fleeced with grain or other green growth, by their dips and waves foreshortened here and there and so differenced in brightness and opacity the green on them, with delicate effect. On left, brow of the near hill glistening with very bright newly turned sods and a scarf of vivid green slanting away beyond the skyline, against which the clouds shewed the slightest tinge of rose or purple. Copses in grey-red or gray-yellow—the tinges immediately forerunning the opening of full leaf. Meadows skirting Seven-bridge road voluptuous green. Some oaks are out in small leaf. Ashes not out, only tufted with their fringy blooms. Hedges springing richly. Elms in small leaf, with more or less opacity. White poplars most beautiful in small grey crisp spray-like leaf. Cowslips capriciously colouring meadows in creamy drifts. Bluebells, purple orchis. Over the green water of the river passing the slums of the town and under its bridges swallows shooting, blue and purple above and shewing their amber-tinged breasts reflected in the water, their flight unsteady with wagging wings and leaning first to one side then the other. Peewits flying.

Gerard Manley Hopkins
(Gerard Manley Hopkins, (28 July 1844 – 8 June 1889) was an English poet and Jesuit priest whose 20th-century fame established him posthumously among the leading Victorian poets.)

April 22nd

1876

Saturday 22 April
We came tumbling and plunging down the steep hillside of Moccas Park, slipping, tearing and sliding through oak and birch and fallow wood of which there seemed to be underfoot an accumulation of several feet, the gathering ruin and decay probably of centuries.

As we came down the lower slopes of the wooded hillside into the glades of the park the herds of deer were moving under the brown oaks and the billiant green hawthorns, and we came upon the tallest largest stateliest ash I ever saw and what seemed at first in the dusk to be a great ruined grey tower, but which proved to be the vast ruin of the king oak of Moccas Park, hollow and broken but still alive and vigorous in parts and actually pushing out new shoots and branches. That tree may be 2000 years old. It measured roughly 33 feet round by arm stretching.

I fear those grey old men of Moccas, those grey, gnarled, low-browed, knock-kneed, bowed, bent, huge, strange, long-armed, deformed, hunchbacked, misshapen oak men that stand waiting and watching century after century, biding God's time with both feet in the grave and yet tiring down ' and seeing out generation after generation, with such tales to tell, as when they whisper them to each other in the midsummer nights, make the silver birches weep and the poplars and aspens shiver and the long ears of the hares and rabbits stand on end. No human hand set those oaks. They are trees which the Lord hath planted'. They look as if they had
been at the beginning and making of the world, and they will probably see its end.

Rev. Francis Kilvert
Robert Francis Kilvert (3 December 1840–23 September 1879), diarist and Rcetor, was born near Chippenham, Wiltshire, His diaries, reflecting rural life in the 1870s, were first published over fifty years after his death.

April 21st

1825

... It has been often asserted that young frogs & fish will fall from the clouds in storms & it has often wrongly asserted when the phenomena has sprung from natural causes — I have seen thousands of young frogs crossing a common after a shower but I found that they had left their hiding places & pursued their journeys after the shower began early in the morning early risers may see swarms of young frogs leaving their birth places & emigrating as fast as they can hop to new colonys & as soon as the sun gets strong they hide in the grass as well as they are able to wait the approach of night to be able to start again but if in the course of the day showers happen to fall they instantly seize the chance & proceed on their journey till the sun looks out & puts a stop to their travelling again.

John Clare
(John Clare (13 July 1793 – 20 May 1864) was an English poet, born the son of a farm labourer who came to be known for his celebratory representations of the English countryside and his lamentation of its disruption.)

April 17th

1870

Easter Day, 17 April
The happiest, brightest, most beautiful Easter I have ever spent. I woke early and looked out. As I had hoped the day was cloudless, a glorious morning. My first thought was 'Christ is Risen'. It is not well to lie in bed on Easter morning, indeed it is thought very unlucky. I got up between five and six and was out soon after six. There had been a frost and the air was rimy with a heavy thick white dew on hedge, bank and turf, but the morning was not cold....

There was a heavy white dew with a touch of hoar frost on the meadows, and as I leaned over the wicket gate by the mill pond>}ooking to see if there were any primroses in the banks but not liking to venture into the dripping grass suddenly I heard the cuckoo for the first time this year. He was near Peter's Pool and he called three times quickly one after another. It is very well to hear the cuckoo for the first time on Easter Sunday morning. I loitered up the lane again gathering primroses where I could from among the thorn and bramble thickets and along the brook banks, not without a good many scratches. Some few grew by the mill pond edge and there was one plant growing on the trunk of a willow some way from the ground. The children have almost swept the lane clear of primroses for the same purpose for which I wanted them. However I got a good handful with plenty of green leaves and brought them home.

The village lay quiet and peaceful in the morning sunshine, but by the time I came back from primrosing there was some little stir and people were beginning to open their doors and look out into the fresh fragrant splendid morning. Hannah Whitney's door was open. I tied my primroses up in five bunches, borrowed an old knife etc. and a can of water from Mary and went to Mrs. Powell's for the primroses Annie had tied for me last night, but no one in the house was up and the door was locked. Anthony and Richard Brooks were standing in the road by the churchyard wall and I asked them if they could show me Mr. Chalmers' grave. Richard Brooks came along with me and showed me where he believed it to be, and it proved to be the right grave. So I made a simple cross upon it with my five primrose bunches. ....

I am glad to see that our primrose crosses seem to be having some effect for I think I notice this Easter some attempt to copy them and an advance towards the form of the cross in some of the decorations of the graves. I wish we could get the people to adopt some little design in the disposition of the flowers upon the graves instead of sticking sprigs into the turf aimlessly anywhere, anyhow and with no meaning at all. But one does not like to interfere too much with their artless, natural way of showing their respect and love for the dead. I am thankful to find this beautiful custom on the increase, and observed more and more every year. Some years ago it was on the decline and nearly discontinued. On Easter Day all the young people come out in something new and bright like butterflies. It is almost part of their religion to wear something new on this day.

Rev. Francis Kilvert
Robert Francis Kilvert (3 December 1840–23 September 1879), diarist and Rcetor, was born near Chippenham, Wiltshire, His diaries, reflecting rural life in the 1870s, were first published over fifty years after his death.

April 16th

1802

Good Friday...When we came to the foot of Brothers Water, I left William sitting on the bridge, and went along the path on the right side of the Lake through the wood. I was delighted with what I saw. The water under the boughs of the bare old trees, the simplicity of the mountains, and the exquisite beauty of the path. There was one grey cottage. I repeated The Glow-worm, as I walked along. I hung over the gate, and thought I could have stayed forever. When I returned, I found William writing a poem descriptive of the sights and sounds we saw and heard. There was the gentle flowing of the stream, the glittering, lively lake, green fields without a living creature to be seen on them, behind us, a flat pasture with 42 cattle feeding; to our left, the road leading to the hamlet. No smoke there, the sun shone on the bare roofs. The people were at work ploughing, harrowing, and sowing; lasses spreading dung, a dog's barking now and then, cocks crowing, birds twittering, the snow in patches at the top of the highest hills, yellow palms, purple and green twigs on the birches, ashes with their glittering spikes quite bare. The hawthorn a bright green, with black stems under the oak. The moss of the oak glossy. We then went on, passed two sisters at work (they first passed us}, one with two pitchforks in her hand, the other had a spade. We had some talk with them. They laughed aloud after we were gone, perhaps half in wantonness, half boldness. William finished his poem before "we got to the foot of Kirkstone. There we ate our dinner. There were hundreds of cattle in the vale. The walk up Kirkstone was very interesting. The becks among the rocks were all alive. Wrn. showed me the little mossy streamlet which he had before loved when he saw its bright green track in the snow. The view above Amble-side very beautiful. There we sate and looked down on the green vale. We watched the crows at a little distance from us become white as silver as they flew in the sunshine, and when they went still further, they looked like shapes of water passing over the green fields. The whitening of Ambleside church is a great deduction from the beauty of it, seen from this point. We called at the Luffs, the Boddingtons there. Did not go in, and w^ent round by the fields. I pulled off my stockings, intending to wade the beck, but I was obliged to put them on, and we climbed over the wall at the bridge. The post passed us. No letters! Rydale Lake was in its own evening brightness: the Islands and Points distinct. Jane Ashburner came up to us when we were sitting upon the wall. We rode in her cart to Tom Dawson's. All well. The garden looked pretty in the half-moonlight, half-daylight. As we went up the vale of Brother's Water more and more cattle feeding, 100 of them.

Dorothy Wordsworth - Grasmere
(Dorothy Wordsworth (25 December 1771 – 25 January 1855) was an English author, poet and diarist. She was the sister of the Romantic poet William Wordsworth, and the two were close for all of their lives.)


1870

Saturday, Easter Eve, 16 April
At 11 I went to the school to see if the children were gathering flowers and found they were out in the fields and woods collecting moss, leaving the primroses to be gathered later in the day to give them a better chance of keeping fresh. Next I went to Cae Mawr. Mrs. Morrell had been very busy all the morning preparing decorations for the Font, a round dish full of flowers in water and just big enough to fit into the Font and upon this large dish a pot filled and covered with flowers all wild, primroses, violets, wood anemones, wood sorrel, periwinkles, oxlips and the first blue bells, rising in a gentle pyramid, ferns and larch sprays drooping over the brim, a wreath of simple ivy to go round the stem of the Font, and a bed of moss to encircle the foot of the Font in a narrow band pointed at the corners and angles of the stone with knots of primroses.

...When I started for Cefn y Blaen only two or three people were in the churchyard with flowers. Hetty Gore and Mrs. Morgan of Cold Blow etc. But now the customary beautiful Easter Eve Idyll had fairly begun and people kept arriving from all parts with flowers to dress the graves.

...It is her birthday to-day. I always tell her she and the cuckoos came together...

Rev. Francis Kilvert
Robert Francis Kilvert (3 December 1840–23 September 1879), diarist and Rcetor, was born near Chippenham, Wiltshire, His diaries, reflecting rural life in the 1870s, were first published over fifty years after his death.

April 15th

1802

15th, Thursday. It was a threatening, misty morning, but mild. We set off after dinner from Eusemere. Mrs. Clarkson went a short way with us, but turned back. The wind was furious, and we thought we mvist have returned. We first rested in the large boat-house, then under a furze bush opposite Mr. Clarkson's. Saw the plough going in the field. The wind seized our breath. The Lake was rough. There was a boat by itself floating in the middle of the bay below Water Millock. We rested again in the Water Millock Lane. The hawthorns are black and green, the birches here and there greenish, but there is yet more of purple to be seen on the twigs. We got over into a field to avoid some cows—people working. A few primroses by the roadside —woodsorrel flower, the anemone, scentless violets, strawberries, and that starry, yellow flower which Mrs. C. calls pile wort. When we were in the woods beyond Gowbar-row Park we saw a few daffodils close to the water-side. We fancied that the lake had floated the seeds ashore, and that the little colony had so sprung up. But as we went along there were more and yet more; and at last, under the boughs of the trees, we saw that there was a long belt of them along the shore, about the breadth of a country turnpike road. I never saw daffodils so beautiful. They grew among the mossy stones about and about them; some rested their heads upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness; and the rest tossed and reeled and danced, and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind, that blew upon them over the lake; they looked so gay, ever glancing, ever changing. This wind blew directly over the lake to them. There was here and there a little knot, and a few stragglers a few yards higher up; but they were so few as not to disturb the simplicity, unity, and life of that one busy highway.

Dorothy Wordsworth - Grasmere
(Dorothy Wordsworth (25 December 1771 – 25 January 1855) was an English author, poet and diarist. She was the sister of the Romantic poet William Wordsworth, and the two were close for all of their lives.)

April 13th

1830

Horncastle, 13th April, morning
. . . There is one deficiency, and that, with me, a great one, throughout this country of corn and grass and oxen and sheep, that I have come over, during the last three weeks; namely, the want of singing birds. We are now just in that season when they sing most. Here, in all this country, I have seen and heard only about four sky-larks, and not one other singing bird of any description, and, of the small birds that do not sing, I have seen only one yellow-hammer, and it was perched on the rail of a pound between Boston and Sibsey. Oh! the thousands of linnets all singing together on one tree, in the sand-hills of Surrey! Oh! the carolling in the coppices and the dingles of Hampshire and Sussex and Kent!

William Cobbett
(William Cobbett (9 March 1763 – 18 June 1835) was an English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist, who was born in Farnham, Surrey.)

April 8th

1873

April 8 — The ashtree growing in the corner of the garden was felled. It was lopped first: I heard the sound and looking out and seeing it maimed there came at that moment a great pang and I wished to die and not to see the inscapes of the world destroyed any more.......

Gerard Manley Hopkins
(Gerard Manley Hopkins, (28 July 1844 – 8 June 1889) was an English poet and Jesuit priest whose 20th-century fame established him posthumously among the leading Victorian poets.)