WHITE-FACED HORNETS 



This opinion is so universal that there 

 is little use in trying to controvert it, and 

 yet these white-faced hornets which I 

 have known, if not closely, at least on 

 terms of neighborliness, do not seem to 

 merit this opprobrium. That they are 

 hasty I do not deny. They certainly brook 

 no interference with their right to a home 

 and the bringing up of the family. But 

 I do not call that a sign of ill temper; I 

 think it is patriotism. 



Probably the trouble with most of us 

 is that we have happened to come into 

 quite literal contact with white-face after 

 the fashion of one of the early explorers 

 of the country about Massachusetts Bay. 

 Obadiah Turner, the English explorer 

 and journalist, thus chronicles the adven- 

 ture in the quaint phraseology of the 

 year 1629. 



" Ye godlie and prudent captain of ye 

 27 



