366 THE REV. F. A. WALKER, D.D., F.L.S., ON 
beaten off another just in time after it had erept between 
my coat and waistcoat and was resting on my shirt close to 
the arm-hole. 
During that same autumn my father, who was himself a 
most eminent entomologist, told me he had got stung by 
one that was in his insect box while he was engaged either 
in setting out another insect or in setting out the hornet 
itself, supposing it to be dead. The creature turned round 
its tail and stung him; but he described the sting that he 
received as not worse than that of the common wasp, 
probably owing to the fact that it was then in a moribund 
condition. 
The effects of a sting by hornet or by wasp no doubt vary 
ina great measure according to the physique, the condition 
of the blood, and general health of the person who experi- 
ences it. A cottager at Assington told me that her father 
many years since had lain insensible for two days, having 
been stung in the head by a hornet, and I read in the 
daily paper some years since that the mayor of a provincial 
town in North Wales succumbed to the sting of a hornet 
on the back of the neck, through failure of the heart’s 
action. The suddenness of the attack and consequent 
shock may have had something to do with the fatal result 
in this instance, as he had not “previously been aware of its 
presence. 
To revert to Saunders’s description of the hornet, he 
proceeds to cite Mr. V. R. Perkins, who says in his list of the 
Hymenoptera aculeata of Wotton-under-Edge, “that he had 
lost no less than three hives of bees by these insects, which 
found their way into the hives, and not only devoured the 
honey, but de ‘stroyed the bees. On removing the hives he 
discovered in one of them a hornet’s nest as lar ge asa good- 
sized turnip.” 
The following table of the British species of Vespa may 
perhaps conduce to a better comprehension :— 
1. Vespa erabro .-. Hornet. 
Op » vulgaris Two commonest species of ground wasp 
3. »  germanica (yermanica possibly being rather the com- 
moner of the two). 
4. »  austriaca } Tree wasps. Only females of austriaca have 
J. 4 norvegica oceurred in Britain, building nests in fir trees 
near Wakefield, Yorkshire, in 1836, accord- 
ing to Smith. Morvegica generally builds in 
gooseberry, currant, or other bushes, but Mr. 
Bignell mentions in a letter a nest of this 
