LETTER XXVII. 



To the same. 



SELBORNE, Dec. izth, 1775. 



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 amuse- 

 ment, 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 pur- 

 suit. 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- 



