suit. In the winter lie 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 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 who 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 the honey, of which he was passionately fond. When 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.'
Note on a Shower of Aphides.
"As we have remarked above, that insects are often conveyed from one country to another in a very unaccountable manner, I shall here mention an emigration of small Aphides, which was observed in the village of Selborne no longer ago than August the 1st, 1785.
"At about three o'clock in the afternoon of that day, which was very hot, the people of this village were surprised by a shower of Aphides, or smother- flies, which fell in these parts. Those that were walking in the street at that juncture, found themselves covered with these insects, which settled also on the hedges and gardens, blackening all the vegetables where they alighted. My annuals were discoloured with them, and the stalks of a bed of onions were quite coated over for six days after. These armies were then, no doubt, in a state of emigration, and shifting their quarters; and might have come, as far as we know, from the great hop plantations of Kent or Sussex, the wind being all that day in the easterly quarter. They were observed at the same time in great clouds about Farnham, and all along the lane from Farnham to Alton."— Id. p. 341.
Note on Fleas infesting the holes of the Sand-martin.
White observes that the old holes of the sand-martin are forsaken, and thinks it may arise from their so abounding with fleas as to become untenantable. He has seen these fleas swarming at the mouth of the holes, like bees on the stools of their hives.—Id. p. 236.
