200 
NATURAL HISTORY 
foft and pliant, is very proper for the dufting of - beds, curtains, 
carpets, hangings, he. If thefe befoms were known to the brufti- 
makers in town, it is probable they might come much in ufe for 
the purpofe aboKe-mentioned K 
1 am. Sec. 
LETTER XXVIL 
TO THE SAME. 
DEAR SIR, Selborne, Dec, 12, 1775. 
AVe had in this village more than twenty years ago an idiot-boy, 
whom I well remember, who, from a child, Ihewed a ftrong 
propenfity to bees ; they were his food, his amufement, his fole 
objedt. And as people of this caft have feldom more than one 
point in view, fo this lad exerted all his few faculties on this one 
purfuit. In the winter he dofed away his time, within his father's 
houfe, by the fire fide, in a kind of torpid ftate, feldom departing 
from the chimney-corner ; but in the fummer he was all alert, and 
in queft of his game in the fields, and on funny banks. Honey- 
bees, humble-bees, and wafps, were his prey wherever he found 
them : he had no apprehenfions from their ftings, but would feize 
1 A befom of this fort is to be feen in Sir JJiton Lever's Mufcum. 
them 
