Artist Tom Lea's painting "The Death of the Wasp," which he was a witness to. by Fletcher Pratt Sailors often choose their ships the way women do horses at a racetrack—by their names. There is a certain amount of justification for this, ships have a habit of repeating the performances of others with the same name, as though their destiny were predetermined by the act of christening. The British Navy, where a long history gives this imponderable sufficient weight to make the choice of lucky names a conscious process, has seldom had a great sea fight in which a Dreadnaught, a Centurion, or a Revenge did not perform nobly. Its long line of cruisers Arethusa stretches back to 1759, all eight of them with brilliant records. In our own service the third Brooklyn is now on the seas, and her people are conscious of a tradition they must regard with care; each of the first two at the crucial moment of a battle made a sudden turn that threw the line into confusion. Or tak...