LETTER XXVII. 



To the same. 



SELBORNE, Dec. i2th, 1775. 



EAR 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 wher- 

 ever he found them; he had no apprehensions from their 



