NATURxVL HISTORY OY SELBOUNE 
143 
LETTEE XXVII. 
TO THE SAME. 
Selborne, Dec. 12th, 17T5. 
Dear Sik. — 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 caste 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 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 manihus, 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 exhibitor of bees ; and we may justly say of him 
now, — 
" . . . Thou, 
Had thy presiding star propitious shone, 
Should'st Wildman * be . . ." 
When a tall youth he was removed from hence to a distant village, 
where he died, as I understand, before he arrived at manhood. 
I am, &c. 
LETTEE XXVIII. 
TO THE SAME. 
Selborne, Jan. 8th, 1776. 
Dear Sir, — It is the hardest thing in the world to shake oiF super- 
stitious prejudices : they are sucked in, as it were, with our mother's 
* Thomas Wildman published a "Treatise on the Management of Bees;" with 
the various methods of cultivating them, both ancient and modern, 4to., 1768. 
