OF HARTING. 383 



the roof of a thatched cottage near Ryefields. The 

 occupants of this cottage were naturally very much 

 alarmed at the daily visits of these dangerous intruders 

 and had begged us to destroy the nest, accordingly one 

 evening, accompanied by an assistant and provided 

 with a large canvas bag, a bull's-eye and two helmets 

 with masks improvised for the occasion, we repaired 

 to the cottage. The entrance to the nest through the 

 thatch was within a foot of the ridge, and our business 

 clearly was to make a breach in the roof in order to 

 effect an entrance. Unfortunately, in doing this we 

 broke the lath from which the nest was suspended 

 and the latter fell on the ceiling of the bedroom below. 

 We lost no time in following it with the light, and 

 after having carefully secured the huge mass in the 

 bag, we turned our attention to the scores of enraged 

 hornets, that had previously escaped from it and were 

 now swarming around us, or dashing furiously against 

 us, with a deep booming chorus of which we retain a 

 very lively recollection to this day, indeed we should 

 probably never forget it in a long life-time. The next 

 few minutes were anxious ones, but we succeeded even- 

 tually in destroying the stragglers and triumphantly 

 bearing off the nest, which we subsequently measured 

 and found to be twenty-three inches in diameter. In 

 this exciting affair we were stung in the hand twice, 

 through a thick buckskin hunting glove, but the pain 

 we experienced, though very severe at first, was not 

 of long duration, and we congratulated ourselves on 

 having escaped a greater punishment. Before the end 

 of the same season, we destroyed no less than seven 

 other nests, and since then we have met with four or 

 five in the Park. Vespa holsatica (Fab.) campanaria of 

 other authors ? is the only other species of the genus 

 that has come under our observation here, and of this 

 we have obtained two nests, one was suspended from 

 the centre of the arched woodwork forming the canopy 

 of Spit-head bench in the Park, and the other was 



