204 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



LETTER XXVII. 



SELBORNE, Dec. iith, 1775. 



DEAR SIR, 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 

 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 them nudis 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 passionately 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 favourite 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 wonder at the feats of a more modern 

 exhibitor of bees ; and we may justly say of him now, 

 " . , . Thou, 



Had thy presiding star propitious shone, 

 Shouldst Wildman 1 be ." 



