A week later, Mina and Lucy are on the hillside above Whitby talking to old Mr. Swales. Lucy playfully refers to him as the "Sir Oracle" of the area. Mina mentions Lucy's robust health and her happy spirits since coming to Whitby. On this day, Mr. Swales refuses to tell Mina and Lucy about a legend which he scoffs at. The legend involves and maintains that many of the graves in the yard are actually empty. This notion is, of course, preposterous to Mr. Swales, and he tells the ladies that they should not believe the silly superstitions of the area.
Mina reports that Lucy and Arthur are preparing for their wedding and that she still hasn't heard from Jonathan for a month; interestingly, the date of this entry is also the date of the last entry that Jonathan Harker made in the journal that he kept in Count Dracula's castle in Transylvania.
Dr. Seward, meanwhile, reports that the case of Renfield is becoming more and more curious. Seward reports that Renfield has developed qualities of selfishness, secrecy, and dubiousness; in addition, Renfield has pets of odd sorts; presently, Renfield's hobby is catching flies, and he has a large number of them. When Seward demands that Renfield get rid of them, Renfield asks for a delay of three days. Two weeks later, Seward reports that Renfield has become interested in spiders and has "several very big fellows in a box." Evidently, Renfield is feeding the flies to the spiders and also munching on the flies himself. About ten days later, Seward reports that the spiders are becoming a great nuisance and that he has ordered Renfield to get rid of them. As Seward is issuing this demand, a fly buzzes into the room and Renfield catches it and "exultantly" eats it. Renfield keeps a notebook in which whole pages are filled with masses of numbers, as if it is an account book; we can assume that he is totaling up the number of flies that he has eaten.
A week later, Seward discovers that Renfield also has a pet sparrow and that Renfield's supply of spiders has diminished; it would seem that Renfield also maintains a supply of flies for the spiders by tempting them with pieces of food. About ten days later, Seward reports that Renfield has "a whole colony of sparrows" and that the supply of flies and spiders is almost depleted.
