HORNETS AND WASPS 47 



wont to put unpicked dead birds in the apiaries. It is 

 strange how writers itch to contradict each other; and 

 this is perhaps why Pietro Crescenzi insists that hungry 

 bees should not be fed with raw meat, but should be 

 given roast chicken. I prefer to believe as Pliny does, 

 that bees do not eat meat unless forced to do so by 

 famine. 



Bees are of different nature from hornets and wasps, 

 for these greedily devour any kind of meat and putrefied 

 flesh, that may be placed before them, as I have tried 

 several times ; not only do they eat meat, but they scrape 

 and roll it into little balls, which they carry to their 

 nests. These insects are so immoderately greedy that 

 sometimes, when hungry, they even dare to attack living 

 animals. Thomas Moufet, in his " Theatrum Insect- 

 arum," relates that in England a wasp was seen to pursue a 

 swallow, and having stung it to death, gorged itself with 

 the blood. Nor do they leave human flesh alone. Hence 

 Cointo of Smyrna said that the Greeks led by Neoptole- 

 mus hurled themselves into the fray like wasps flying 

 from their nests in search of human food. Likewise 

 the sovereign poet, who in his divine works " showed 

 the full power of the Tuscan tongue," took as his theme 

 the sufferings of those doomed ones, who on the other 

 side of Hell's gate were tormented with wasps : 



" These miscreants who never were alive 

 Were naked and were stung exceedingly 

 By gad-flies and by hornets that were there. 

 These did their faces irrigate with blood, 

 Which with their tears commingled at their feet 

 By the disgusting worms was gathered up." 



Wasps are gluttonous eaters of serpents, if we are to 

 believe Pliny, and this food, says he, makes their sting 



