PROPENSITY OF AN IDIOT BOY 211 



is very proper for the dusting of beds, curtains, carpets, 

 hangings, &c. If these besoms were known to the brush- 

 makers in town, it is probable they might come much in use 

 for the purpose above mentioned.* 



LETTER LXIX. 



TO THE SAME. 



SELBORNE, Dec. 12, 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 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 fire- 

 side, 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 with naked hands, 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 



* A besom of this sort is to be seen in Sir Ashton Lever's museum. 



p2 



