160 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



LETTER XXVII. 



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, shewed 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 dosed 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 nudiv 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 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 sallow, and of a cadaverous 

 complexion; and, except in his favourite 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 exhibiter of bees ; and we may justly say of him now, 



Thou, 



" Had thy presiding star propitious shone, 

 " Should' st Wildman^ be ." 



1 [Thomas Wildman, a noted beemaster, and author of a Treatise on the 

 Management of Bees, London, 1768, 410.] 



