742 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Two liundi-ed years ago, the old traveler Flacourt declared that tlie 

 serpents were all inoftensive ; recent experience confirms the fact. 

 The largest is named Pelophilus Madagascariensis. There are others, 

 such as tlie Langaha nasuta and Crlsta-galU (zoologists having re- 

 tained the name they bear among the natives), which are very singu- 

 lar, from the prolonged form of the snout, arising from the skin being 

 lengthened out. Beautiful lizards, covered with brilliant scales of 

 olive or fawn, spotted with black, white, and yellow, hide themselves 

 under the stones, in the moss, or in old trees. But Madagascar is 

 especially the land of chameleons ; in the lieart of the forests, they 

 may be seen crouched on the branches, calm and immovable, rolling 

 their large eyes. The crocodile is the only creature to be feared, and 

 accidents from it are very rare, as the inhabitants greatly object to 

 venturing into water. 



The insects of Madagascar offer a thousand types for admiration. 

 There are valuable kinds, furnishing wax, honey, and silk; the first 

 two forming one of the natural riches of the island. The bee peculiar 

 to the country has a black body, red underneath ; it is very abundant 

 in the woods, and makes its nest in decayed trunks of trees, whence 

 the Malagaches tear the comb. 



But there was an epoch when much more remarkable animals lived 

 in Madagascar. In the marshes near the river Manoumbe, at no great 

 depth, a great number of bones of the hippopotamus, of colossal tor- 

 toises, and of the limbs and eggs of the CEpyornis 'inaxinms, have 

 been found. The eggs of this king of birds are six times larger than 

 those of the ostrich ; and it was at first hoped that, in the hitherto 

 unknown solitudes of the interior, some living specimens might be 

 found ; that hope has, however, vanished, though it is evident they 

 once existed in great numbers in the southwest part of the island. 

 They were of various species, and of different sizes. At the same 

 period, the hippopotamus must have been abundant, as the bones of 

 fifty skeletons were picked up in a few hours. This species, of very 

 inferior dimensions to that frequenting the Nile, is entirely extinct. 

 Chambers's Journal. 



-- 



. SKETCH OF PROFESSOE STOKES. 



THE subject of this notice, George Gabriel Stokes, was born 

 August 13, 1819, at Skreen, in the county of Sligo, Ireland, his 

 father being rector of the parish. At an early age he was sent to a 

 school at Dublin, conducted by the Rev. R. H. Wall, D. D. Here he 

 remained for about three years, when he entered a college at Bristol, 

 as a preparation for the university. After two years spent at Bris- 

 tol, young Stokes, in 1837, entered Pembroke College, University of 



