DESTRUCTIVENESS OF WASPS. 225 



own, after that "most unkindly cut of all" which severs 

 her head from her body. Of one it is recorded* that she 

 lived three days after decapitation, a miracle of nature only 

 to be matched by the legendary ones of St. Dionysius, St. 

 Winifred, or their Saxon prototype Queen Oswitha, who, when 

 her head was cut off by the Danes, carried it three furlongs 

 before she fell down and died. 



But suppose them killed, what is our gain in having dealt 

 death singly or by retail to our pilfering customers ? Nothing, 

 usually, but a flushed face, a soiled handkerchief, and may be 

 a swollen finger. By treacherously drowning them in sweet 

 delights of beer and sugar, we do but little better, since for 

 the scores thus perishing we attract many more by our vessels 

 of temptation and phials of wrath. The only mode, then, of 

 Wasp massacre, which we consider other than wanton, because 

 not futile, is their wholesale destruction, when we can come at 

 them in their own strong-holds within the earth. We might 

 possibly, however, be of a different opinion were we in the 

 grocery line, and subject to any such tremendous loss as that 

 of 20, said to have been experienced by a single tradesman 

 in one season, in the article of sugar. 



Both Reaumur and the younger Huber studied the domestic 

 economy of the common Wasp, as they did that of Bees, by 

 means of glass hives. In this they were greatly assisted by the 

 extreme affection of Wasps for their young ; for though the 



* By Lyonnet. 



