HORNETS AND SPIDERS 223 



other insects much as a small boy devours apples, 

 in a succession of bites. 



Bees, wasps, and hornets are very well repre- 

 sented, especially the latter, which build their mud 

 cells on the moulding of your ceilings, on the backs 

 of pictures, in the folds of curtains, and elsewhere. 

 Some of these insects are exceedingly venomous, 

 and are armed with a sting whose application is not 

 soon forgotten. One variety, of deep black with 

 bright yellow legs, in the course of the formation 

 of the cells of his nest fills them with the corpses 

 of spiders, and other grubs, for the support of its 

 young, which thus enjoys its first meal before 

 pushing its way out of the place of its deposit. 



Venomous spiders, scorpions, and centipedes are 

 quite numerous ; I am happy to say, however, that 

 they are usually too startled by their contact with 

 humanity to have much aggressive disposition left, 

 and lose no time in getting out of the way. 



Locusts and grasshoppers are also with us, as 

 many varieties of cricket. The first-named at 

 times appear in immense devastating swarms which 

 lay the country bare for miles, and do often irre- 

 parable damage. 



Although in the foregoing I have only succeeded 

 in giving the faintest and most inadequate idea of 

 the teeming insect life of the Zambezi Valley, for 

 the scant justice I have done this wide subject 

 there is an excellent reason, namely, my in- 

 tense and bitter hatred of the greater number of 

 the members of this branch of natural science. 

 If we except the exquisitely coloured varieties of 

 Zambezian butterflies (some of these even losing 



