CHAP. XVIII. 
THE HONEY-BIRD. 
165 
The Hottentots, finding that we were not all killed, 
gradually came back and looked on. I was standing a 
little way off—for I must confess that I am more 
frightened of the sting of a bee than of a man or woman 
either—with my hand on the branch of the tree, when 
all at once one of the natives standing behind seized me 
round the neck, and pulling me head over heels back¬ 
wards, held me on the ground, pointing to the other 
moth, which was perfectly quiet, and not an inch from 
my hand. 
Dr. Courtnay took out his penknife, pinned the 
moth to the tree, and subsequently examined it also, 
declaring there was a sting. The Doctor preserved this 
specimen of the 4 Dood moot,’ with the intention of 
sending it to the Medical Institution. 
Many respectable Dutchmen (one a Field-Cornet 
De Lange) have declared to me that they have known 
death to ensue from the sting of this moth; but there 
has, in my mind, been something to account for death in 
a more reasonable manner. For instance, when the 
Boer has been taking out a bees’ nest on the face of a 
precipice, or from under an overhanging rock, and the 
moth has come out and stung the man, he has dropped 
from sheer fright to the bottom of the 4 krantz ; ’ so that, 
whether he was stung or not, the fall would in all 
probability be the cause of death. All assert that 
there is a small inflamed blue or black mark where 
