English naturalist's diary, as blog?

September 22, 2016 11:30 AM

In the mid-aughts, there was a person re-posting from an English naturalist's diary, day-for-day. I think the diarist was writing in the early-to-mid 19th century, but I could be wrong. The diarist was a man. Where is that blog, and/or who was that naturalist?
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic to Science & Nature (8 answers total)

Famously there's Samuel Pepys's diary, which had a long life as a daily posting project. (He's better known as a man-about-town than a naturalist per se, so this may not be the one you're thinking of.)
posted by LobsterMitten at 11:35 AM on September 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

Samuel Pepys?

Maybe you're thinking of The Diary of Samuel Pepys: "The diary entries were published on this site daily, in real time, from January 2003 until May 2012, with readers discussing events each day. From January 2013 the diary entries will again appear on the front page at the end of the day (London time), starting with 1 January 1660."
posted by GuyZero at 11:35 AM on September 22, 2016

Response by poster: It was not Samuel Pepys; this was a guy who was much less famous, who lived somewhere relatively rural.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 11:36 AM on September 22, 2016

Wikipedia's List of Diarists
posted by GuyZero at 11:37 AM on September 22, 2016

Best answer: Gilbert White?
posted by holgate at 11:43 AM on September 22, 2016 [5 favorites]

Response by poster: holgate has it! Thank you!
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 11:45 AM on September 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

(White's diary also inspired
Verlyn Klinkenborg's wonderful book,
"Timothy; or, Notes of an Abject Reptile")
posted by scruss at 6:54 AM on September 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

Looking for this yesterday, I ran across this wikipedia page -- there's apparently a whole category of people known as "parson-naturalists," so that's a useful search term for anyone in the future with a similar question.
posted by LobsterMitten at 8:14 AM on September 23, 2016