238 
NATURE NOTES 
them in most books on the Aculeate Hymenoptera. They are useful inoffensive 
insects, and show great diligence in collecting their prey. I have watched O. 
parietinus extract maggots from rolled nettle leaves, paralyse the unfortunate 
victim with a sting and fly off with it, though often it is longer than the wasp 
herself. O. parietinus is extremely common, and may be seen throughout the 
summer either at work or sunning herself on palings or walls. Very often she 
burrows into rotting wood instead of earth, and forms her cells there. — E. F. C.] 
Wasps, &C. — I see on page 218 that Mr. Daubeny misrepresents me to 
readers, and must ask for a little space to correct his statements. Will he kindly 
quote where and when I have said that wasps were “ an unmitigated nuisance ”? 
I think I have every number from the first “ Letters ” of the Selborne Society, 
but I do not see how I could hold such an idea, as I know from fifty years’ 
observation of wasp life that they do good as well as harm. Then, again, Mr. 
Daubeny informs us that I often “ kill the bullfinches,” and he admires me for 
it. Now, I am under the impression that I recommended catching them for 
pets instead of killing them. I saw a beautiful lot at a show of cage birds at 
Stratford-on-Avon a few days since, and felt glad that I had recommended such 
a course, and I know of one in this parish, owned by one of the leading ladies, 
that I caught in my garden some seven years ago, It has become so tame and 
contented that it has full liberty to fly about the rooms and go out into the 
garden at leisure : that is different from being shot — their usual fate — as vermin. 
About forty have placed themselves in trap cages in my garden this autumn so 
far — five beautiful male birds in succession to-day in about an hour. Their 
havoc on fruit buds is terrible in some localities I have visited. One head 
gardener told me they took all the apple bloom-buds from the gardens last 
winter, and I saw the plum-buds in a farmer’s orchard a complete wreck from 
bullfinches and sparrows. 
Ashvood Bank , Redditck. J. Ill am. 
A Spider Story from the Soudan. — Major Lawrie, who was married 
yesterday amidst a sympathetic concourse of his brother officers in the Soudan 
campaign, is the hero of an interesting superstition. Before Atbara he discovered 
in the ventilator of his helmet an energetic spider, which came out in the even- 
ing, and having had his supper of flies, returned to his hiding-place. Perhaps 
remembering the story of Bruce and the spider, the Major left his new friend 
unmolested, and went into the Atbara fight with him. Men were killed all 
round, but Major Lawrie escaped without a scratch. At Omdurman he com- 
manded a battery, and again was unwounded. Meanwhile, the spider slumbered 
in the helmet, waiting for this ridiculous human commotion to cease that he 
might come out and kill flies for supper. When the hurly-burly was over. Major 
Lawrie packed various articles to be sent home, and amongst them the helmet 
and the spider. Too late he 'remembered that he had sent his little friend on a 
long voyage without any larder. In great tribulation he hastened to London, 
opened the helmet-box, expecting to find the spider a corpse, and was rejoiced 
to see him alive, and even vigorous. Stranger still, on the way to England he 
(we beg pardon — she) had produced two young spiders ! So profound is the 
impression made by this story in the Major’s family circle that the most con- 
spicuous gift of the bride’s mother to the bride is a diamond spider, who will 
probably take care of Mrs. Lawrie in her husband’s absence, and become a 
priceless heirloom. — Daily Chronicle , November 9. 
The Vale of Nightshade.— Dugdale (Monasticon, 1655), quoting from 
the metrical preface to the Coucher Book of Furness (completed 1412), says that 
the valley in which Furness Abbey is built was called Bekansghill on account of 
the prevalence of the “llerba Bekan.” The Abbey was founded in 1 127, and 
what the plant may have been is now unknown. West, the historian of Furness 
(1774), wrote as if it were a fact that Bekan was Atropa Belladonna (or, as the 
name stood in those days, Solatium letha/e) and designated the place the “ Vale 
of Nightshade.” On this foundation West’s followers built the legend and 
changed the name to the more fanciful “Vale of Deadly Nightshade” — a 
title which it still bears in local guide books and better publications. That 
