The leaves came down in a rush in last weekend's wind-driven rain, and most of the trees in our woods are now barren except for the tenacious oaks, whose reddish-brown leaves hang on into winter. So when the sun came out, treasures that were hidden by green foliage all summer long suddenly popped into view. Sundry bird's nests, of course, including the little cup that a female ruby-throated hummingbird carefully constructed of plant fibers and down, spider webs and lichens in the ancient apple tree by the front porch. Then there was the humongous bald-faced hornet's nest, hanging from a slender branch on a young sugar maple, that I had driven past a hundred times during the summer and never noticed. Bald-faced hornet nest (By Les Line) Their name aside, bald-faced hornets are really wasps and not true hornets like the introduced European or giant hornet, a fact of interest mainly to entomologists. They are close relatives of yellow-jackets and both build globular paper nests...