352 WILD SPORTS OF BURMA AND ASSAM 



I saw that my hat was literally covered with a black, enraged, 

 crawling mass of hornets. We had actually walked over the 

 nest, and I was the only one who had escaped. My two 

 companions fairly writhed and groaned in their agony, so 

 excruciating was the pain. Two or three stings from this 

 particular species of hornet, it is said, is sufficient to kill a 

 man. 



I had a few days before this incident received a letter from 



my friend D , already referred to in a previous portion of 



this paper. I may mention that his was a hornets' nest in a 

 tree in the garden of a Buddhist monastery, occupied by 

 several monks, who had asked D - to destroy the nest by 



firing a charge of shot into it. D had arrived that day 



from Bernardmyo, with a friend, G , and they were both 



putting up in a rest-house adjoining the monastery a few yards 

 off*. I shall read an extract from his letter. " That affair 

 with the wasps was awful. I had a very narrow squeak ; I 

 just managed to get into a very dark place in the jungle in 



time, there were hundreds after me ; G took refuge in 



a dark room in the ' pongyi khoung ' monastery. They 

 were a small-sized wasp with dark brown bodies and no 

 stripe. They killed both our dogs, two of my transport mules, 



and G *s pony. One of the mules had only six stings, 



and many Burmans in the village had a dozen or more, so 

 that the poison evidently effects animals more than men." 



I had an awful business recovering my hat ; quite an hour 

 and a half elapsed before I eventually succeeded in dragging 

 it away by tying bamboos together. These hornets seemed 

 to be able to see at a distance of from 15 to 25 yards, as one 

 of my men was stung a second time by one of them, which 

 shot out from amongst the cloud hovering and crawling 

 around the nest, and made straight for him, stinging him on 

 the back as he ran off. I remember, on one occasion, being 

 nearly killed by my pqny, which, maddened by the stings 

 received from them, ran away with me through jungle, 

 regardless of curb-chain, fallen trees, stumps, and overhanging 

 branches. I had to dodge them as best I could, thinking all 

 the time that my last hour had come. When a thing like 

 this happens to an elephant, especially should there be a 



