With regard to the storing of these cells with food for the grubs of the wasp, Mr Cory[8] found that the number of spiders enclosed in eleven cells varied from eight to nineteen. These are caught by the wasp, stung so as to be insensible, but not killed, and then the egg is laid in their bodies, so that on being hatched the grub finds itself in the midst of food.
BUILDING AND BURROWING WASPS
Another species of these solitary wasps is a much larger insect, about two inches in length, and she makes nests, which are extremely hard, and are like half-buried native water-pots, with the mouths facing the observer, and arranged regularly one above the other. When finished they are plastered over with rough gravel. Unlike the wasp previously mentioned, this one does not fetch the clay for building purposes from the banks of a stream, but carries the water to the dry earth, which it then damps and kneads into balls. The cells are stocked with caterpillars, which are stung and numbed in the same way as the spiders are treated by the first-named wasp. There are usually three caterpillars placed in each cell.
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.
LUXURIANT GROWTH
The prolonged moisture, combined with the heat of this time of the year, naturally makes everything grow luxuriantly. The hillsides again become green and pleasant to the eye; our gardens are gay with flowers, and in many places the open downs display a considerable amount of floral beauty. I have never seen elsewhere such a profusion of wild flowers as that which met our view when travelling from the south-west to Antanànarìvo in December 1887. Leaving Antsìrabé and proceeding northwards, the level country was gay with flowers, which literally covered the downs, and in many places gave a distinct and bright colour to the surface of the ground. Among these the most prominent was a pale pink flower on stems from a foot to eighteen inches high, called by the people kòtosày (Sopubia triphylla), and also the lovely deep blue flower called nìfinakànga, which latter covered the paths and also occurred very abundantly among the grass. In many places, especially near villages, whether deserted or still inhabited, a plant with small pale blue flowers (various species of Cynoglossum), almost exactly like our English “forget-me-not,” grew in dense masses, showing a blue-tinted surface even at a considerable distance. The vonènina, with a pale pink flower, was very frequent, as well as several species of bright yellow flowers, one with a head of minute florets, looking like a small yellow brush; others were star-shaped, the whole forming in many places a brilliant mass of gold. Three or four species of white-flowered plants, one of them a clematis (Clematis bojeri), were very frequent; and a few late examples of terrestrial orchids were seen. Five or six weeks previously these were among the most abundant flowers met with, and their clusters of waxy-white flowers were very conspicuous. Other species of orchid, of rich crimson and also of purple, were even more beautiful.
We reckoned that there were from twenty to thirty different species of wild flowers then in bloom on these downs of Vàkinankàratra, gladdening our eyes by their varied beauty and abundance on that glorious morning. The flowers, however, grew much scarcer as we travelled over higher ground; but six weeks previously these upper tanèty had also been gay with great masses of the brilliant crimson flowers of a leguminous plant, which grew in clusters of many scores of spikes growing close together. Our ride that day obliged us to modify the opinions previously held as to the poverty of Madagascar in wild flowers.
[8] The Rev. C. P. Cory, B.A., formerly of the Anglican Mission in Madagascar.