120 BY MEADOW AND STREAM. 



" Our trail led us at first through a natural meadow, 

 overgrown with waist-high grass, and very spongy to 

 the tread. Hornet haunted also was this meadow, 

 and therefore no place for idle dalliance or unwary 

 digression, for the bite of the hornet is one of the 

 saddest and most humiliating surprises of this mortal 

 life." 



Do hornets bite ? Our hornet ( Vespa crabrd] is a 

 stinging insect, a sort of giant compared with Vespa 

 vulgaris, the common wasp. It builds in decaying 

 hollow trees, eaves of old barns, etc.; but this Ameri- 

 can meadow-haunting, biting hornet is new to me. 1 



The next essay transports us to Scotland and the 

 Hebrides, under the title of " A Handful of Heather." 

 Our author has a fancy for reading his fiction in the 

 place where it was grown. Thus ( ' Romola " accom- 

 panies him to Rome, " The Heart of Midlothian " to 

 Edinburgh, and "Lorna Doone" to Exmoor ; but, 

 says he : 



* ' I never expect to pass pleasanter days than those 

 I spent with *A Princess of Thule' among the 

 Hebrides ; for then ... I was young . . . but even 

 youth itself was not to be compared with the exquisite 

 felicity of being deeply and desperately in love with 

 Sheila, the clear-eyed heroine of the charming book. 

 In this innocent passion my grey-haired comrades, the 

 Chancellor of the University of New York and my 

 father were ardent but generous rivals. . . . According 

 to Tennyson, the most important element in a young 

 knight's education is 'the maiden passion for a 



l See " Fresh Woods and Pastures New." Letter XV. "An 

 Evening with the Hornets." 



