VESPID^E WASPS, HORNETS. ITI 



Hail the daughters of the wing-footed steed : 



this would I suppose fit to be spoken in way of je^t and 

 scorn to snolding women, which do imitate the hastiness and 

 froward disposition of the Wasj). Otlier sorts of them are 

 produced out of the putrid corps of the Crocodiles, if llorus 

 and the ^gytians be to be believed, for which reason when 

 they mean a Wasp, they set it forth by an horse or croco- 

 dile. Nicander gives them the name luko^noadon, because 

 they sometimes come from the dead carkasses of wolves. 

 Bellenacensis and Yicentius say, that Wasps come out of 

 the putrefaction of an old deer's head, flying sometimes out 

 of the eyes, sometimes out of the nostrils. . . . There are 

 those also that affirm tl*at Wasps are begotten of the earth 

 and rottenness of some kind of fruits, as Albertus and the 

 Arabick scholiast." 



Of the Hornet, likewise, these writers tell the following 

 fabulous stories : " The Latins call the Hornets Grahrones, 

 perchance from the village Crabra in the countrey of Tus- 

 culum (where there are great store of them), or from the 

 word Caballus, i.e. a horse, who is said to be their father. 

 According to that of Ovid, Met. 15 : 



The warlike horse if buried under ground, 

 Shortly a brood of Hornets will be found, 



Albertus calls it a yellow Bee. Cardanus will needs have 

 them to arise from the dead mule. Plutarch, in the life of 

 Cleomedes, saith they come out of horse flesh, as the Bees 

 do out of the oxe his paunch. Yirgil saith they are pro- 

 duced of the asse. ... I conceive that those are produced 

 of the harder flesh of the horse, and the Wasps of the more 

 tender flesh. "^ 



The Hornet, (but whether or not it was the common 

 species, Vespa crabro, Linn., is uncertain), we learn from 

 Scriptures was employed by Providence to drive out the 

 impious inhabitants of Canaan, and subdue them under the 

 hand of the Israelites. — "And I sent the Hornet before you, 

 which drave them out before you, even the two kings of the 

 Amorites."^ 



In the second volume of Lieutenant Holman's Travels, 



1 Theatr. Ins., p. 40-50. Topsel's Hist, of Beast.<>, p. 921-7. Vide 

 Vierius' Ilierofflyph., p. 267-8; Pernicies summota; Puguacitas ; 

 Imperfecti mores civiles ; Perturbator. 



^ Josh. xxiv. 12; Deut. vii. 20. 



