WILDWOOD WAYS 



burst him, as a steam fire-engine is when 

 the city is going up in flame and smoke 

 and the fire chief is shouting orders 

 through the megaphone and the engineer 

 is jumping her for the honor of the de- 

 partment and the safety of the commu- 

 nity. He burbles and bumps and buzzes 

 and bursts, almost, in just the same way. 

 It is no wonder that people misunder- 

 stand such roaring energy, driving home 

 sometimes too fine a point, and speak of 

 Vespa maculata and his near of kin the 

 yellow jackets, and even the polite and 

 retiring common.black wasp, with dislike. 

 In this the genial Ettrick Shepherd, high 

 priest of the good will of the open world, 

 does him, I think, much wrong. " O' a' 

 God's creatures the wasp," he says, " is 

 the only one that is eternally out of tem- 

 per. There 's nae sic thing as pleasing 

 him." 



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