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NATURAL HISTORY 



LETTER XXVII. 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRING TON. 



SELBORNE, Dec. 12, 1775. 



jE had in this village, more than twenty years 

 ago, an idiot boy, whom I well remember, 

 who, from a child, showed a strong propen- 

 sity to bees ; they were his food, his amuse- 

 ment, 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 father's house, 

 by the fireside, 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 manibus, and 

 at once disarm them of their weapons, and suck their 

 bodies for the sake of their honey-bags. Sometimes ho 

 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 under- 



