FIRST LESSON IN INSECT LIFE. 221 



settled on the apron of our instructress. Pointing our little 

 fore-finger towards the intruder, in whom we innocently 

 thought that we had our subject bodily before us, we were 

 surprised to see our nurse start up with a scream, let fall 

 her work, shake her apron, and stamp on the floor, until a 

 few scattered fragments were all that remained of the hap- 

 less insect. " Kill the busy Bee !" we exclaimed, but were 

 sharply answered that it was a " spiteful, venomous Wasp," 

 and that we were very silly not to know the difference. In 

 what that difference consisted was a point, however, on which 

 our nurse did not deem it requisite to enlighten us. But 

 our childish curiosity was awakened, and in order to its satisfac- 

 tion, the very next time we saw an Insect which we were pretty 

 certain was either Bee or Wasp, half-buried in a flower-cup, 

 we laid hands on it, with a view to examination. The little 

 forager, as might have been expected, stung our fingers, but 

 now, making sure that it was a Wasp, we repressed a rising 

 scream, and having first returned pinch for sting, threw off 

 our enemy, and trampled it under foot. Triumphantly carry- 

 ing the remains of our vanquished foe to our good nurse, we 

 met with condemnation instead of praise for " meddling with 

 the Bees, the most innocent creatures in the world, if nobody 

 offended them." From that memorable day we took care 

 never to handle either Wasp or Bee, though we had learnt to 

 distinguish one from the other. And this early impression 

 may account for an unusual preference (except in the matter 



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