Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

RESIDENCE AT TARAPOTO 69
a perfect cloud of wasps, and got horribly stung.
When we had got away from the foot of the tree,
and had beaten off the wasps that followed him, I
saw that his face and his naked back and shoulders
were covered with knobs from the stings. He
staggered and looked wild, and was evidently in
great pain. I took out my flask, and was about to
pour some spirit into my hand to bathe the stings,
when he said, " If it's all the same to you, patron,
I'd rather have it inside." I gave him the flask,
and he took a good pull. No doubt he preferred
the remedy that way because he liked the taste of
it. Anyhow, it was the right way,
and he went on
through a long hard day without a word or gesture
of disquiet, and when we reached home declared
himself quite well again.
I have been stung by wasps I suppose hundreds
of times once very badly, having above twenty
stings in my head and face alone. Yet I have
always admired their beauty, ingenuity, and heroic
ferocity ; and I have twice in my life lived on good
terms with them for months together. At
Carlos I had several little colonies of the large
brown house-wasps, which hung their nests-
inverted goblet-glasses from the rafters, and out-
side the house under the eaves. They
stung me, not even when they had so multipl
to become troublesome, and 1 poked
never once
down ami
seemed t
swept out several of their nests. They
recognise me as the real owner of the house;, where
they existed who should
only on sufferance,
imprudently linger
in the
would be sure to be attacked by them,
in his Expedition to Surinam, gives