The "spume-bearer" (Aphrophora) this insect has been called, and the peculiar method by which he turns out the froth on the stem is well worth a little study. He makes no secret of the process. If we take a grass stem, remove him from his liquid lair, and transfer him to another stem, we may witness a novel method in the preparation of suds. And a busy little factory it is, too, when we consider what a continuous demand is made upon it, caused by the sun's evaporation through the long summer day. A single mass of bubbles with its tenant removed quickly disappears. If the little insect is permitted to crawl upon our hand, he is apt to try the new domicile. I have never been able to induce him to continue up to the suds point, but have no trouble in locating the place where he begins operations.
The Paper Wasp & His Doings
FEW of our common insects enjoy a wider intimate acquaintance with or a more respectful recognition from humanity than the wasps and hornets. Their acquaintance, with that of their yellow-jacket bee and bumble-bee relatives, is forced upon most of us at a tender and impressionable age, and leaves a lasting reminiscence. Having once been interviewed by a hornet, do we not remember him for life for his pains?
The bee has perhaps given us equally pointed excuse for respectful, or rather disrespectful, consideration, and yet how different is our attitude to the bee in contrast with that towards the hornet! Why? The discrimination is largely a matter of sentiment, but especially a matter of ignorance; sentiment as associated with fragrant flowers and droning wings and "white-clover honey"—for do we not all know the "busy bee," and how he "gathers honey all the day" for the hive, and thus for humanity and the hot biscuit? There is then a palliative for the busy bee's "hot foot," as Paddy described his first warm contact with the insect. But who ever heard of any one with a good word for the hornet? He is under the ban—an outlaw, the black sheep of the insect fraternity, a source of uneasy suspicion, shunned by valiant man, good for nothing to the boy except to shy stones at from a safe retreat; while to the fair sex, always the signal for precipitate flight, if not hysterical terror.
The popular verdict on the hornet is so well voiced in that famous entomological essay from the pen of Josh Billings that I am tempted to quote it entire and use it for my present text. I am sure the average reader will say "Amen" to every word of it:
"The hornet is a red-hot child ov Nature ov sudden impreshuns and a sharp konklusion. The hornets alwus fites at short range and never argy a case. They settle all ov their disputes bi letting their javelin fly, an' are az certain an' az anxious tew hit az a mule iz. Hornets bild their nest wherever they take a noshun to, an' seldum are asked to move; for what good is it tew murder 99 hornets an' have the one hundred one hit you with his javelin! I kan't tell you just tew a day how long a hornet kan live, but I kno from experience that every bug, be he hornet or somebody else who is mad all the time, an' stings every chance he kan git, generally outlives all ov his nabors."
An artistically constructed paragraph, with a "snapper" at the end of it, or rather a "sharp konklusion" quite consistent with its subject.