NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 163 



LETTER XXVII 



SELBORNE, Dec. i2t/t, 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-cor- 

 ner ; but in the summer he was all alert, and in quest of his 

 game in the fields, and on sunny banks. Honey-bees, bumble- 

 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. 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 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 sal- 

 low, and of a cadaverous complexion ; and, except in his fa- 

 vorite 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, 

 ShouldstWildmanibe." 



