54 NATURAL HISTORY OF WASPS. 
fable, against the gnat. The proper armour, offen- 
sive and defensive, would have been found in Birnam 
Wood.* Still, with all the resistance that science 
and hardiness could offer, a large surveying party 
has been driven off by a seemingly much more 
contemptible enemy than wasps, within the few last 
years, “We were fairly vanquished—the labour of 
a hundred men, and as many mules and horses put 
an end to by tiny flies.” 
I alluded just now to the competency of the 
hornets of Palestine to the task assigned to them. 
The common Indian hornet V. cincta, which, with 
V. orientalis,* as I am told, is found in Syria, is alto- 
gether a much more formidable enemy than her 
British representative. Dr. J. B. King, of Penang, 
to whom I am indebted for many specimens of 
Indian Entomology, tells me with reference to this 
wasp, October 17, 1863,—“ He is very vicious, and 
we are all in great fear of him. No later than last 
Sunday one flew into the Scotch kirk where one of 
the merchants was reading the service, plumped 
down and stung him instantly on the head, and was 
off again in a moment. The sting drew blood 
besides being excessively painful. I was once stung 
by two of them, while riding at a foot’s pace by their 
nest, on the back of the head. The pain was most 
severe. Tenderness down the neck and in the part 
* Macbeth, Act V, Scene 4. 
+ Lord. ‘ At Home in the Wilderness,’ p. 277, in reference to the 
mosquitoes. The sand-flies, p. 285, seem even more to be dreaded, by 
mules at least. 
t Figured in Drury’s ‘ Illustrations of Exotic Entomology,’ edited 
by Westwood, Vol. II, plate 39, fig. 1. 
