SELBORNE, _Dec._ 12_th_, 1775.
Dear Sir,--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 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 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,
Shouldst 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.