G4 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
Ro ee tee Xe Oe 
TO THE SAME. 
SELBORNE, Dec. 12th, 1775. 
DEAR S1IR,—We had in this village more than twenty years ago 
an idiot boy, whom I well remember, who, from a child, showed a 
strong propensity to bees; they were his food, his amusement, his 
sole object. And as people of this caste 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 depart- 
ing 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 
them zzdis manibus, and at once disarm them of their weapons, 
and suck their bodies for the sake of their honey-bags. Sometimes 
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 their bee-gardens, and, 
sitting down before the stools, would rap with his finger on the 
hives, and so take the bees as they came out. He has been known 
to overturn hives for the sake of honey, of which he was passion- 
ately 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 favour- 
ite pursuit, in which he was wonderfully adroit, discovered no 
manner of understanding. Had his capacity been better, and 
directed to the same object, he had perhaps abated much of our 
