136 NOTES BY THE WAY. 



of the road. I had noticed in my walks some small 

 bullet-like holes in the field that had piqued my curi- 

 osity, and I determined to keep an eye on these in- 

 sects of the road-side. I explored their holes, and 

 found them quite shallow, and no mystery at the bot- 

 tom of them. One morning in the latter part of July, 

 walking that way, I was quickly attracted by the sight 

 of a row of little mounds of fine freshly dug earth rest- 

 ing upon the grass beside the road, a foot or more be- 

 neath the path. " What is this ? " I said. " Mice, or 

 squirrels, or snakes," said my neighbor. But I con- 

 nected it at once with the strange insect I had seen. 

 Neither mice nor squirrels work like that, and snakes 

 do not dig. Above each mound of earth was a hole 

 the size of one's largest finger, leading into the bank. 

 While speculating about the phenomenon, I saw one 

 of the large yellow hornets I had observed, quickly 

 enter one of the holes. That settled the query. 

 While spade and hoe were being brought to dig him 

 out, another hornet appeared, heavy-laden with some 

 prey, and flew humming up and down and around the 

 place where I was standing. I withdrew a little, 

 when he quickly alighted upon one of the mounds of 

 earth, and I saw him carrying into his den no less an 

 insect than the cicada or harvest-fly. Then another 

 came, and after coursing up and down a few times, 

 disturbed by my presence, alighted upon a tree, with 

 his quarry, to rest. The black hornet will capture a 

 fly, or a small butterfly, and after creaking and dis- 

 membering it, will take it to his nest ; but here was 



