And this is all there is to the "mad" of the hornet. He is generally not half as mad as are his detractors. He is simply minding his own business, and is as busy as a bee in his own way; and if his critics will only mind theirs, there need be no fear that he will try "konklusions" with them, or even give a hint of his "javelin."
This curious episode may be witnessed by any one who will take the trouble to closely observe the wasp. The sunny side of the barn or stable is generally the favorite hunting-ground, and any one who will spend a half-hour in following the efforts of a single wasp will have to admit that he earns his living, for it is not every fly that is caught napping, and that white face, with its eager, open jaws, must needs butt itself against the shingle many times before its quest is satisfied.
But the warlike hornet does not always content himself with such small game as a house-fly. Big bluebottle-flies are a frequent prey, and juicy caterpillars are a welcome variety in his daily diet. Even the butterfly, with a body nearly as large as his own, falls a frequent victim, the scimitar-like jaws severing the painted wings in a twinkling, either during flight, or falling one by one from its dangling retreat.
The life of the black hornet, or wasp, may be briefly summed up. The females survive the winter, and in spring build a tiny comb of papery material composed of saliva and timber scraped from old gray boards and fence rails. In each cell of the comb an egg is laid, which soon hatches into a minute white grub, the sides of the cells being continued to accommodate its growth, the comb being gradually inclosed in the paper covering and enlarged as the nest cells are increased. The grub at maturity incases itself within its cell by closing the orifice with a silken veil, and soon turns to a chrysalis, and in a few days emerges as a perfect wasp. Several broods are reared in a season, the combs being extended in several layers, each suspended by a single stalk from the centre of the one immediately above. A single nest sometimes presents as many as six or seven tiers. But the nests are much more safely examined in winter than in summer.
The Spider's Span
OBSERVERS who witnessed from day to day the construction of the great Brooklyn Bridge were often heard to remark, as they looked up with awe from the ferry-boats beneath at the workmen suspended everywhere among the net-work of cables, "Those men look just like spiders in a web." The comparison seemed irresistible, and the writer heard it expressed many times. But how few who gave utterance to the sentiment realized the full significance of the "spider" allusion, or for a moment reflected that the span itself was, in many particulars of its construction, but a parallel of an engineering feat of which the spider was the earliest discoverer. Yet among all the distinguished names engraved upon the memorial tablet upon the stone bridge-tower the spider gets no credit.
Day after day and week after week we might have seen, travelling back and forth against the sky, a wheel-shaped messenger reeling off its tiny wire. Night and day it was busy, each trip adding one more strand to the growing cable which was to support the great substructure below. And what was this travelling wheel called? "The carrier," or "traveller," if I remember rightly. Why this obviously intentional slight and discourtesy when every field and wood and copse in the country—indeed, on the globe—showed its living example, and bore its myriadfold witness that the "spider" was the only legitimate and proper designation?