this would I suppose fit to be spoken in way of jest and scorn to scolding women, which do imitate the hastiness and froward disposition of the Wasp. Other sorts of them are produced out of the putrid corps of the Crocodiles, if Horus and the Ægyptians be to be believed, for which reason when they mean a Wasp, they set it forth by an horse or crocodile. Nicander gives them the name lukosnoadon, because they sometimes come from the dead carkasses of wolves. Bellenacensis and Vicentius say, that Wasps come out of the putrefaction of an old deer’s head, flying sometimes out of the eyes, sometimes out of the nostrils.… There are those also that affirm that Wasps are begotten of the earth and rottenness of some kind of fruits, as Albertus and the Arabick scholiast.”
Of the Hornet, likewise, these writers tell the following fabulous stories: “The Latins call the Hornets Crabrones, perchance from the village Crabra in the countrey of Tusculum (where there are great store of them), or from the word Caballus, i.e. a horse, who is said to be their father. According to that of Ovid, Met. 15:
The warlike horse if buried under ground,
Shortly a brood of Hornets will be found.
Albertus calls it a yellow Bee. Cardanus will needs have them to arise from the dead mule. Plutarch, in the life of Cleomedes, saith they come out of horse flesh, as the Bees do out of the oxe his paunch. Virgil saith they are produced of the asse.… I conceive that those are produced of the harder flesh of the horse, and the Wasps of the more tender flesh.”[590]
The Hornet (but whether or not it was the common species, Vespa crabro, Linn., is uncertain), we learn from Scriptures was employed by Providence to drive out the impious inhabitants of Canaan, and subdue them under the hand of the Israelites.—“And I sent the Hornet before you, which drave them out before you, even the two kings of the Amorites.”[591]
In the second volume of Lieutenant Holman’s Travels,
the following anecdote is related: “Eight miles from Grandie——, the muleteers suddenly called out ‘Marambundas! Marambundas!’ which indicated the approach of Wasps. In a moment all the animals, whether loaded or otherwise, lay down on their backs, kicking most violently; while the blacks, and all persons not already attacked, ran away in different directions, all being careful, by a wide sweep, to avoid the swarms of tormentors that came forward like a cloud. I never witnessed a panic so sudden and complete, and really believe that the bursting of a water-spout could hardly have produced more commotion. However, it must be confessed that the alarm was not without good reason, for so severe is the torture inflicted by these pigmy assailants, that the bravest travelers are not ashamed to fly, the instant they perceive the host approaching, which is of common occurrence on the Campos.”[592]
Dr. Fairfax, in the Philosophical Transactions, mentions a lady, who had such a horror of Wasps, that during the season in which they abound in houses, she always confined herself to her apartment.[593]
Dr. James tells us: “The combs (of the Hornet) are recommended in a drench for that disorder in horses, which Vigetius, L. 2, c. 23, calls scrofula, meaning, I believe, what we call the strangles.”[594]