Hornets’-nest is smoked under horses’ noses for distemper, cold in the head, and such like diseases. It is also given to horses in their feed for thick-windedness.
The nests of Hornets are gathered by the country people to clean spectacles.
Topsel, in his History of Four-footed Beasts and Serpents, has the following prognostications of the weather from the appearances of Hornets: “They serve instead of good almanacks to countrey people, to foretel tempests and change of weather, as hail, rain, and snow: for if they flie about in greater numbers, and be oftner seen about any place, then usually they are wont, it is a signe of heat and fair weather the next day. But if about twilight they are observed to enter often their nests, as though they would hide themselves, you must the next day expect rain, winde,
or some stormy, troublesome or boysterous season: whereupon Avienus hath these verses:
So if the buzzing troups of Hornets hoarse to flie,
In spacious air ’bout Autumn’s end you see,
When Virgil star the evening lamp espie,
Then from the sea some stormy tempest sure shall be.”[595]
“In the year 190, before the birth of Christ,” say Moufet and Topsel, “as Julius witnesseth, an infinite multitude of Wasps flew into the market at Capua, and sate in the temple of Mars, they were with great diligence taken and burnt solemnly, yet they did foreshew the coming of the enemy and the burning of the city.”[596]
The first Wasp seen in the season should always be killed. By so doing, you secure to yourself good luck and freedom from enemies throughout the year.[597] This is an English superstition, and it prevails in parts of America. We have one, also, directly opposed to it, namely, that the first Wasp seen in the season should not be killed if you wish to secure to yourself good luck. Many of our people, too, will kill a Wasp at no time, for, if killed, they say, it will bring upon them bad luck.