172 The Natural History 



it is probable they might come much in use for the 

 purpose above-mentioned.^ 



I am, etc. 



LETTER XXVII 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON 



Selborne, December 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, 

 showed 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 

 nudis 7nanibus^ and at once disartn 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 j 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 



^ A besom of this sort is to be seen in Sir Ashton Lever's 

 Museum. 



