MADAGASCAR (II) 171 
colored daughter, named Maria, had a Bandro (reed-lemur). 
Although allowed to run loose, it used to sleep most of the day in 
a room, but in the afternoon about the time for Maria to return 
home from school the bandro was very much awake, perched on 
the window-sill of her bedroom, waiting and watching. When she 
was close enough to be recognizable, this intelligent little animal 
hopped down the stairs to greet her, and then followed a great 
fussing while the bandro clung to her breast. No one else mattered 
in the slightest, for Maria, it seemed, was mother and father to 
this delightful little orphan. 
By good fortune we were able to stay on the mission station 
belonging to the London Missionary Society at Imerimandroso, 
a Malagasy town at the northeast end of the lake. This was a 
great help to us as the L.M.S. missionary, Mr. Williams, was fluent 
in the Malagasy language and was able to spread our require- 
ments to all the lakeside villages through his native pastors. 
Profiting from previous experience I decided to keep my water- 
fowl quite dry, and so converted a large fowl run into a suitable 
aviary for ducks. To make it secluded I had the place enclosed 
with a close-fitting papyrus reed fence, and the sleeping shed 
bedded deeply with rice straw. The feeding troughs were made 
long but only two inches wide so that the birds were unable to 
get into them and wet their plumage. As soon as the straw became 
at all damp it was replaced with clean dry straw. It seems ridicu- 
lous to keep waterfowl dry but in point of fact this is the only 
way to insure that newly captured birds—especially delicate 
species—survive. In close confinement wild ducks quickly lose the 
oiliness in their feathers, which then become damp, and this is 
fatal. On my first expedition I used traveling crates with barred 
fronts so that the ducks had to put their heads through the bars 
to feed and drink. Rice straw was put on the floors of the boxes, 
but owing to the large amount of water consumed, and the con- 
sequent wateriness of the droppings, the straw became quickly 
soiled and had to be changed twice daily. This entailed a lot of 
work because of the numbers involved, and was never wholly 
satisfactory because the birds’ feathers inevitably became damp. 
On this second expedition I made a new type of traveling box 
with a false bottom of small-mesh wire netting so that all drop- 
