Another wasp, also very common, does not build cells, but digs a burrow in the ground, even in pretty hard places, like a well-trodden road. Some of these use caterpillars for stocking their burrows, some large spiders, and some crickets, but all drag or carry their prey on foot, even the largest of them. One small wasp, when carrying a spider, first amputates all its legs and then slings the body beneath her. The burrows of the larger wasp are deep in comparison with the size of the insect, being frequently a foot or more in depth. Mr Cory gives a graphic description of a battle between one of these wasps and a large spider, in which, however, the former managed to sting its prey and capture it. There is one very small wasp that makes no cell or burrow, but chooses a long hole in a piece of wood, or a small bamboo, etc., for the rearing of its larvæ. “Each kind of wasp seems to have its own peculiar way of hunting; some run down on foot by scent for long distances; some dash down violently into the web of a spider, and catch him as he drops from out of it; while others again seize their prey upon the wing, especially the social wasps. The males of all are lazy and do no work.”[9] January is usually the wettest month of the year in Imèrina; and in some years there occurs what the Hova call the _hafitòana_, or “seven days”—that is, of almost continuous rain, although it more usually lasts only three or four days. Such a time is most disastrous for houses, compounds and boundary walls, for the continuous rain soaks into them and brings them down in every direction. From the steep situation of the capital, almost every house compound is built up on one side with a retaining wall, and on the other is cut away so as to form a level space. [Sidenote: LUXURIANT GROWTH]