Note 65 — JOURNAL OF A NATURALIST. (continued 5)
Reading edition
The hornet is a very pugnacious animal. They will fight desperately with each other at times, when they meet in pursuit of prey, biting each other’s body, and trying to get their mandibles under the head of their opponents, to snip it off. I one day confined under a glass two of these creatures, which had been fighting. One had evidently the mastery; but both had been so injured in the contest that they soon died; and it is most probable that they fall victims to each other’s voracity, in the cold, damp season that usually terminates the autumn of our year.