224? RUSH CANDLES. 



or great golden maiden-hair, which they call silk- 

 wood, and find plenty in the bogs l . When this 

 moss is well combed and dressed, and divested of 

 its outer skin, it becomes of a beautiful bright 

 chestnut colour ; and, being soft and pliant, is 

 very proper for the dusting of beds, curtains, 

 carpets, hangings, &c. If these besoms were 

 known to the brushmakers in town, it is probable 

 they might come much in use for the purpose 

 above mentioned 2 . 



XXVII. 



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 dozed away his time, within his fa- 

 ther'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 appre- 

 hensions from their stings, but would seize them 

 nudis manibus, and at once disarm them of their 



1 Very commonly used in Scotland and Ireland for the 

 same purposes, and also for mats or rugs, which are plaited 

 together, leaving the tops sticking out for two or three 

 inches, and thus making both a warm and useful household 

 appendage. W. J. 



2 A besom of this sort was to be seen in Sir Ashton Lever's 

 museum. 



