6 NATURAL HISTORY OF WASPS. 
leaves were the approved remedy for wasp-stings in 
his time, and he tells us that hornets, the large 
orange-yellow wasps, were called Boolgetingh in the 
Gothic language. 
Wasps and hornets have‘never wanted names in 
our islands. Lhuyd* gives kakkynen for the Welsh 
name, chwilkiores and guihien for the Cornish, and 
eirkveach for the Irish, while the Armorican guezpeden 
and guezpel show that the late Latin vespa, which has 
since been so widely adopted, was already creeping 
into use. The epithets} familiarly applied to wasps 
and hornets in the Welsh language, such as yellow- 
tailed, carpenter, singer, might seem to denote that 
the Welsh took a great interest in the insects whose 
characteristics they thus stereotyped. But Welsh 
scholars assure me that they are not favourite 
subjects of allusion in the Triads, and that the form 
of the language, not affection, dictated the mode of 
expression. 
Ordinary observation, as far as this went, was 
correct enough; but when any thing more is — 
attempted, where any description of habits occurs, 
the want of a proper distinction of species becomes 
apparent, resulting in the strangest contradictions. 
The same confusion which makes many of Aristotle’s 
remarks unintelligible prevails, and even to a greater 
degree, with the accumulation of additional observa- 
tions, in all the subsequent histories of wasps, till 
quite a recent period: even Réaumur’st great work 
* Lhuyd, ‘ Archeologia Britannica.’ Folio 1707. 
+ Owen’s ‘ Welsh and English Dictionary.’ 2 vols. 4to. London, 
1803. 
} ‘ Mémoires pour servir i l’Histoire des Insectes.’ Tome VI. I 
