APID^ — BEES. 205 



" The Inhabitantes willingly eate the young Bees, rawe, 

 roasted, and sonietiraes sodden."^ 



Bancroft tells us that when the negroes of Guiana are 

 stung by Bees, they in revenge eat as many as they can 

 catch.2 



The following account of the Bee-eater of Selborne, Eng- 

 land, is by the Reverend, and very accurate naturalist, Gil- 

 bert White: "We had in this village," says he, "more 

 than twenty years ago (about 1*765), an idiot boy, whom I 

 well remember, who, from a child, showed a strong pro- 

 pensity to Bees : they were his food, his amusement, his sole 

 object ; and as people of this cast have seldom more than 

 one point in view, so this lad exerted all his few faculties on 

 this one pursuit. In the winter he dozed away his time, 

 within his father's house, by the fireside, in a kind of torpid 

 state, seldom departing from the chimney corner ; but in the 

 summer he was all alert, and in quest of his game in the 

 fields and on sunny banks. Honey-bees, Humble-bees, and 

 Wasps were his prey, wherever he found them: he had no 

 apprehensions from their stings, but would seize nudis 

 marnhus, and at once disarm them of their weapons, and 

 search their bodies for the sake of their honey-bags. Some- 

 times he would fill his bosom between his shirt and his skin 

 with a number of these captives ; and sometimes would 

 confine them in bottles. He was a very Merops apiaster, 

 or Bee-bird, and very injurious to men that kept Bees ; for 

 he would slide into tiieir Bee-gardens, and, sitting down be- 

 fore the stools, would rap with his finger on the hives, and 

 so take the Bees as they came out. He has been known to 

 overtuT-n hives for the sake of honey, of which he was pas- 

 sionately fond. Where metheglin was making, he would 

 linger round the tubs and vessels, begging a draught of 

 what he called Bee-wine. As he ran about he used to 

 make a humming noise with his lips, resembling the buzzing 

 of Bees. This lad was lean and sallow, and of a cadaverous 

 complexion ; and, except in his favorite pursuit, in which 

 he was wonderfully adroit, discovered no manner of under- 

 standing."^ 



There is a peculiar substance formed by a species of Bee 



1 Martyr, p. 274. 



2 Banc. Guiana, p. 230. 



3 Nat. Hist, of Selborne, p. 293. 



