250 EYE SPY 



by you. Hereditary instinct at least ought to 

 teach you that your drum should play second fid- 

 dle to that hornet's humming music. I remem- 

 ber once being the witness of the sad fate of an 

 ancestor of yours who drummed not wisely but 

 too well. He was monopolizing the neighbor- 

 hood, just as you are doing now, when I noticed 

 his principal effort was suddenly cut short in the 

 middle in a most unusual manner. If he had 

 been a singer I would have supposed some rival 

 had clapped a hand over his mouth, so suddenly 

 was the song abbreviated. In another moment 

 there was a rustling among the leaves, as some- 

 thing fell from the tree in his immediate neigh- 

 borhood. Down, down it dropped, its passage to 

 the ground accompanied by one or two short, 

 sharp, spasmodic tattoos on that same noisy drum. 

 The object fell among some rocks, but before I 

 could reach the spot the humming sound of a 

 sand -hornet greeted my ears, and in a moment 

 more the insect took flight directly across my 

 path, and, what was more, he was not alone. 

 Would you know who accompanied him ? Look 

 then on the picture on page 252, and have a care, 

 my noisy friend, for the lineal descendant of that 

 sand -hornet now hovers outside my doorway. 

 He has a grudge against your tribe, and he is 

 even now on your scent. Perhaps you may be 

 interested to know what the hornet did with that 



