plenty in the bogs. When this moss is well combed 

 and dressed, and divested of its outer skin, it be- 

 comes 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 more into use 

 for the purpose above mentioned.* 



Selborne, Nov. i, 1776. 



LETTER LXIX. 

 To THE Honourable Daines Barrington. 



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 facul- 

 ties on this one pursuit. In the winter he dozed 

 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, 



* A besom of this sort is to be seen in Sir Ashton Lever's Museum. 



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