HIGHER PRIVILEGES OF BALD HORNETS. 197 



What is there in this crude undistilled oaken 

 sap so attractive to the palate of some insects? 

 When I got back to camp I was surprised to 

 find that a large click beetle, 76 black with red 

 head and thorax, and also a wood-nymph butter- 

 fly had joined the ranks of the boozers and were 

 busy at the sap. Getting a cyanide bottle I con- 

 signed the click beetle to its depths, then part- 

 ing the grass roots just below the visible in- 

 sects found there a colony of hidden ones. 

 Among them were beetles of three families, viz. ; 

 three kinds of true sap-feeders, 77 two rove bee- 

 tles and an "antelope beetle 78 ." There may have 

 been others, but the bald hornets returned to 

 the sap and I at once retreated therefrom. Long 

 ago I learned to respect the higher privileges of 

 bald hornets and bumble-bees. When you are 

 in their way they always greet you with their 

 tail-end first and not with the hearty welcome 

 of a friendly hand-shake. 



When I came to this camp I forgot my comb. 

 Only my fingers have I had, the comb of nature, 

 first used by dusky maiden monkeys in the aeons 

 past when they paused to arrange their locks 

 before the mirrors of the brooklets' pools. My 

 hair is short and therefore as yet not too un- 

 kempt. Each night, however, I search my scalp 

 for wood ticks, which are blood-suckers, not sap- 

 sippers. 



n Ludius attenuates Say. n Nitidulidae. 

 n Dorcus paralklus Say. 



