9
THE SILENT HORNET
I vividly remember as a small boy the roof of a
nearby thatched cottage being taken over by
hornets, and having been frequently stung by
wasps (usually drunkards reeling around after a
surfeit of plums or sap seeping from beetle
holes in an elm trunk), lived in dread of being
stung by one of these 'woppers', particularly
as I was assured that I would certainly snuff
it.
On one occasion a returning hornet droned
noisily along and overtook me on my small bike
to join those buzzing angrily around the
cottage. Knowing what it was, but not knowing
quite where it was, I felt the hair on my neck
standing on end, and cringed, hoping it was not
making for me!
Hornets are not often seen these days, although
we had a nest in our compost heap at Braintree
a year or two ago, but something looking to the
layman very like a hornet, that I had never
seen until I moved down to south—west Essex,
seems nowadays to be commonplace, at least in
this part of the county.
On two occasions, once in 1986 and once again
this year, in early October, I have been
startled by an enormous fat—bodied insect,
bright yellow, tinged with rusty brown, sitting
sunning itself on the concrete apron in front
of the Edwards Building at N. E. London Poly-
technic. Earlier this year, on the 6th
August, a freshly emerged specimen sat quietly
on a grass stem in a rough grassy area by the
Lee Navigation at Temple Mills, allowing close