204 We OJarUerTs 



quaintances who are always saying disagreeable 

 things, and selects him as the type of the insect- 

 ile annoyances of the world these foes, too 

 small to shoot, that are ever puncturing us one 

 way or another. The Colorado beetle, the cur- 

 culio, the locust, the Western grasshopper, the 

 slug, the aphides, the currant-worm, the cod- 

 ling-moth, are all hornets in disguise. Perhaps 

 the parson's solution, that the hornet is sent to 

 " culture our patience," is the most rational one 

 yet assigned for his existence. And yet the 

 hornet is useful in another way, in feeding his 

 young with the soft parts of other insects, in- 

 cluding mosquitoes, which are thus largely de- 

 stroyed. 



The honey-bee is the most frequent among 

 the insect visitors to the blossoms overhead, 

 though the gnats and flies are also numerously 

 present, banqueting on the sweets. I see vari- 

 ous bumble-bees, wasps, and hornets as well, 

 the former being the most numerous, after the 

 honey-bees. From all of these many wings 

 there arises a soothing, sonorous murmur of 

 industry, a humming as from a vast hive. It is 

 one of the sweetest of Nature's voices ; less 

 ethereal but not unlike the aerial music which 

 one sometimes pauses to hear near woods arid 

 streams at this season. After Beethoven re- 



