CLASSIFICATION OF THE SPECIES. 53 
the remains of the nations were driven out by such 
means, but only to the specific insect by whom this 
expulsion is said to have been effected. The closer, 
however, the subject is examined the more competent 
do the hornets of Palestine prove to be to the task ; 
and, indeed, the rival tsetse would appear, by com- 
parison, a much less direct and much less powerful 
enemy than the hornet. A less obviously alarming 
insect, such as a fly, or a flight of locusts, or a pesti- 
lential vapour might have been chosen as instru- 
ments to drive out the Amorites. But, as it was, 
the indigenous hornets were selected to expel .them 
gradually and quietly, and then, in their turn, 
gradually to give place to the advance of the 
Israelites coming to take permanent possession of 
the Promised Land. In strong contrast with the 
simple Bible narrative, the pomt here being the 
gradual expulsion of the nations by this pest which 
they could not exterminate, stand the accounts in 
various authors,* of armed hosts being routed or 
thrown into confusion by similar agencies. But the 
touch of the marvellous which is introduced into the 
accounts I am now alluding to, as far as I have been 
able to examine them, is scarcely sufficient to exclude 
the sense of the ludicrous. The result, taking these 
as reported, on the credit of the several historians, 
should, however, be ascribed rather to the defence- 
less state of the armed men than to the power. of 
their winged adversaries. Sword and spear would 
be as useless against wasps as the lion’s paw, in the 
* See the references in the articles cited above in the ‘ Pictorial 
Bible,’ Smith’s ‘ Dictionary of the Bible,’ and ‘Bible Cyclopeedia.’ 
I have not been able to verify all these personally. 
