Bees, Wasps, and Yellow-Jackets
While honey-bees and wasps can make themselves most disagreeable when disturbed, you can usually keep away from beehives and bee-trees as well as from the great gray, papery nests of the wasp; but the hornets or yellow-jackets have an uncomfortable habit of building in low bushes and on the ground where you may literally put your foot in a hornets' nest.
They are hot-tempered little people, these same hornets, as I have reason to know. Twice I have been punished by them, and both times it was my head they attacked. Once I found them, or they found me, in a cherry-tree; and the second time we met was when I stepped in their nest hidden on the ground. Their sting is like a hot wire pressed into the flesh. When angered they will chase you and swarm around your head, stinging whenever they can; but they may be beaten off if some friendly hand will wield a towel or anything else that comes handy.
If the stings of any of these stinging insects are left in the wounds they should be taken out with a clean needle or clean knife-blade. In any case mix some mud into a paste and plaster it on the parts that have been stung. If you are in camp and have with you a can of antiphlogistine use that instead of the mud; it is at least more sightly and is equally efficient in reducing inflammation.
Various things have been devised as protection against insect torments.
One is a veil of net to be worn over the hat. You will find this described in Chapter IV under the heading of Personal Outfits.