VERTEBRATA FROM MADAGASCAR. 479 



of the Sakalava districts. The neat Uttle villages, composed mostly 

 of reed-houses, had occasional two-story houses, some of brick. The 

 inhabitants, docile, cheerful, and good-tempered, keep little shops, 

 wear straw hats, and are far from being savages. 



^Yhile the Swahilis collected water-birds on the south shore of the 

 lake, Mr. ^Yulsin devoted two days to shooting crocodiles, on the 

 Sahabe River, which flows into the Lake from the south. After a 

 few days spent a little further south, on the edge of the Eastern Forest, 

 at the little town of Didy, the party returned to Tananarive. Then 

 having packed his collections, Mr. Wulsin sailed from Tamatave for 

 Europe, the latter part of October, leaving his Swahilis on the way at 

 Mombasa. 



2. — Amphibia and Reptilia. By Thomas Barbour. 



The Wulsin series of amphibians and reptiles supplement very 

 satisfactorily the Madagascan material already in the Museum of 

 Comparative Zoology. This consisted of a quantity of examples 

 collected by Voeltzkow and received in exchange through the late 

 Oskar Boettger. That exchange containing an excellent series of such 

 an interesting form as Voeltzkovia mira, was our greatest previous 

 acquisition from the Mascarene region. Early missionaries and New 

 England sailing masters had also contributed considerable material 

 from Nosy-Be and from other of the more oft visited ports. From 

 among these specimens Cope described Tomosterna lahrosa, really 

 one of only two species of Rana known from Madagascar and one 

 long confused with Rana natalensis Smith. 



A far larger number of species of reptiles than of amphibians were 

 secured by Mr. Wulsin ; a fact in part due to the rather more specialized 

 knowledge necessary to secure the latter, the dry weather encountered, 

 and the added circumstance that much of the collecting was in the 

 arid almost semidesert southwestern district about Tulear. 



A number of species of Amphibia are omitted for the reason that 

 it is desirable to have them compared with authentic European ma- 

 terial, something not now practicable. 



Mr. Wulsin obtained while in Madagascar a very considerable 

 collection wliich had been made in the great Eastern Forest at a point 

 about half wa;\' between Tamatave and Tananarive and " Eastern 

 Forest" is used as a locality -record for this collection, which provides 



