50 NATURAL HISTORY OF WASPS. 
another. One seems, indeed, to find certain peculiar 
traits of character in the different species, when one 
has had the opportunity of watching them closely for 
some time; but perhaps these distinctions may be 
imaginary. V. sylvestris is the most powerful, and is 
said to have the sharpest stmg. Ido not know how 
this may be, but V. vulgaris knows best how to use 
it; and I would far rather attack a nest of the bold 
open enemy than of the persevering little wretch 
which works her way between all the jomts in ones 
armour. V. rufa is said* to be particularly gentle, to 
hold the place among wasps which the humble bee 
has among bees. But of the habits of this wasp I 
have no personal knowledge. 
Only the hornet has a history of its own. A 
mysterious dread has connected itself with the name 
of this insect which, doubtless, its mention in the Bibleft 
as the scourge by which the nations were gradually 
driven out before the Israelites, tends to maintain. 
As we do not now, in Europe, under its present cir- 
cumstances, recognize in the hornet such a powerful 
instrument of destruction as this would represent, the 
exactness of the translation has been questioned, and 
Bruce's African’ zimb or tsetset has been suggested 
as a better rendering.§ We must remember, however, 
* Edgeworth on Irish Vespide. ‘ Annals and Magazine of Natural 
History,’ 3rd Series, Vol. XIII, p. 472. 
+ Exodus xxiii, 28. Deuteronomy vii, 20. Joshua xxiv, 12. 
Wisdom of Solomon xii, 8, has the word Wasps. 
+ Livingstone’s ‘Travels in South Africa.’ Small 8vo, 1861. 
p. 56. 
§ See notes of ‘Pictorial Bible,’ on Joshua xxiv, 12, favouring 
the claims of the zimb. Smith’s ‘Dictionary of the Bible,’ Article 
Hornet, receives this word in a metaphorical sense, as equivalent to a 
