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] 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]