The first instance is vivid in my memory. It occurred in my boyhood--_my_ boyhood? how many another boy remembers the same incident. That same hot day in August, that same cool, shadowy swimming-hole in the brook, that same gray paper nest on the overhanging branch a few rods up stream? What a tempting target! How the stones flew as, safe up to our necks in water, if need be, we pelted the paper domicile! And now a lucky throw has gone straight to the mark. With a crushing thud the stone has penetrated the side and knocked off a piece of the gray wall, which falls to the stream below, exposing the tiers of paper comb, as a whirling, buzzy maze, like a swarm of bees, enshrouds the mangled house. Ah, what fun! How we laughed at the sport!--for at least ten seconds. Then the tide turned, and how gladly had we possessed the art of the bull-frog, and buried ourselves in the mud until the storm blew over, for the "mad" warlike hornets were upon us. The red-hot child of Nature "was now at short range," and "stinging every chance they could get." "When you see a head hit it," seemed to be the plan of campaign, and of course the heads had to come up once in a while, and erelong were considerably enlarged, principally through inoculation, but let us hope with wisdom as well. "A mad hornet, and only at a little boyish fun! Look on this picture, and now on this." I have shown our hornet under exceptional circumstances, when anger may be a positive virtue and a means of grace. Following are some of the every-day capers, which have not helped his reputation, as I observed them on the crowded porch of a summer hotel in the White Mountains several years ago. It was in September, and about twenty guests, mostly ladies and "summer girls," were assembled in a quiet social convention. Suddenly there was a scream, as one of the fair ones, with a frantic, vigorous stroke of uplifted fan, distorted face, and a cross-eyed glare, clutched her roll of fancy-work and fled to the house. "Did he sting you?" asked her friend, who readily followed her in the door. "The horrid hornet!" she exclaimed. "No, he didn't sting me, but he would have done if I hadn't hit him just that minute. He flew right at me in the _ugliest_ way!" The words were hardly out of her mouth when another scream was heard, followed by a general clearing of the piazza. There were now two or three "mad" hornets making themselves generally promiscuous among the guests. At the last general alarm one gentleman, an old bachelor, who sat tilted back in his chair near by, remarked, with an expression of superior disdain at such a silly exhibition of feminine weakness: "Why, ladies, the hornet won't sting you if you'll only let him alone; he has been buzzing around here for an hour, and hasn't stung anybody yet."