588 THE REV. F. A. WALKER, D.D., F.L.S., ON 
men and beasts fly promiscuously in every direction, each 
only anxious to escape from the winged toes. 
“The Talmudical writers inclined to the literal view of the 
passage, and dilated on the terrible power of the hornet, four 
of which could destroy a horse, and one kill a boy nine years 
of age, or a man, provided he was stung in the forehead. 
The ‘sting of the hornet is very severe indeed, exceeding in 
vir nlence that of the wasp, to which it is closely allied, and 
it is possible that a boy, or even a man, might be in so feeble 
a state of health, or be naturally so sensitive to poison, that 
the sting of a hornet would be fatal. As a rule, however, 
the sting of the hornet, although exceedingly painful, is 
scarcely more injurious than that of a bee ot wasp. The 
Taimudists stated that the hornets mentioned in Joshua 
killed the people by stinging them in the eye.’ 
Vespa constitutes the only British tribe of wasps which is 
social and gregarious in its way of life. On the continent 
there are other genera that similarly live together in nests, 
e.g., those belonging to the family Polistes, of which Polistes 
gallicus, that I have taken in Switzerland, and also in Spain, 
and is common along the Mediterranean, i is a well known 
example. Its cells are very small, as befitting such a slender- 
bodied insect, and it was possibly the forsaken fragment of a 
nest of this species that I discovered in 1882 on a bush in 
the neighbourhood of Tarsus and brought away with me. 
For ‘good illustrations of some of the exotic species of 
hornets, all who are interested in the subject are referred 
to Rey. J. G. Wood’s work. Insects Abroud represents the 
neuter of the splendid Chinese wasp, which is appropriately 
called Vespa mandarinia. 'Vhe female is shown on Plate IX, 
Fig. 3. 'This fine insect is found in China and Japan and 
throughout the whole of said countries. It is coloured very 
much like our common hornet, but is much richer in appear- 
ance, owing to the very broad and ample head and the amount 
of bright yellow upon it. The colours are rich dark brown, 
banded, striped, and marked profusely with “ king's’ ’ yellow. 
The jaws are enormously powerful. The wings are yellow, 
darker at the base, and becoming lighter towards the tips 
(p. 499 of same work); the male has no spots on the 
abdominal band. 
I possess several specimens of the male (believed to be 
from China) in my own collection. 
I may remark that Wood’s Insects Abroad contains two 
illustrations of Vespa mandarinia, one of the largest, and 
