368 THE REV. F. A. WALKER, D.D., F.L.S., ON 
Angelica. Hornets had also a nest in the thatched gables of 
the cottage where I first saw the light, and their presence 
gave considerable annoyance, as the insects used to fly in 
and out of the bedroom windows until a sheet of lead was 
nailed over their entrance hole by night and their egress effec- 
tually prevented for the future. 
Another instance that I recall also about that date was 
that of a nest in the root of a tree on the bank of the New 
River, which was not only completely dead, but entirely 
denuded of its bark. Vespa crabro is rightly described as a 
local species, and many years of my life have passed by 
without my coming across one single specimen in England. 
In the month of August, 1897, however, while in temporary 
charge of the parish of Assington, near Colchester, owing to 
their great prevalence and the number of nests in the parish, 
I was enabled to tabulate the following observations more 
in detail, which were duly communicated to the Entomologist 
of that date. 
“ Vespa Crabro.—l should be greatly indebted for any 
information afforded respecting the numerical strength of 
a hornet’s nest. Though there must be many nests in this 
neighbourhood, I doubt whether any one nest contains more 
than one hundred or so. This formidable insect seems in 
such plenty here this season as to prove a positive source of 
danger, and the fruit crops, especially the apples, sufter 
accordingly. Only a few hundred yards from the vicarage, 
along the Stoke and Nayland road, are two cottages under 
one thatched roof, inhabited respectively by two families 
related to each other, and comprismg jointly about fifteen 
children. In the side of the thatch of the first cottage there 
is a hornet’s nest, and in the thatch of a low outhouse, on 
the farther side of the second cottage, there is another. 
It goes without saying that the time-honoured, and as a rule 
the best, plan for suffocating the inmates by the application 
of a folded linen rag, alternating with layers of sulphur, and 
then set on fire, cannot be adopted here, as the thatch 
would speedily be in a blaze ; and moreover, in the case of 
the nest in the outhouse, it is believed to be several feet 
distant from the only hole of entrance, at the far end possibly 
of the old run of a rat, as the booming sound made by the 
insects is distinctly heard close to the rear of the building. 
“The suspension of wide-mouthed bottles containing a 
compound of sugar and beer to the sides of the cottage and 
outhouse has not been without the desired effect, as several 
