1 94 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



LETTER XXVII. 



TO THE SAME. 



SKLBORNE, Dec. i2t/i, 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 depart- 

 ing 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 passion- 

 ately 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 

 lipsj resembling the buzzing of bees. This lad was lean and 

 sallow, and of a cadaverous complexion ; and, except in his favour- 

 ite pursuitj 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 



