252 THE ODYSSEY OF AN ANIMAL COLLECTOR 
ence and consoled myself with the knowledge that the Giant Rat 
specimens had made the round trip well worth while. 
As I was about to leave for Tananarive via Ambositra, I was 
told that a native had a captive Verreaux’s Sifaka, so I called on 
him with the idea of getting it. Unfortunately the animal was 
missing and he explained that it was free to wander at will and 
that it spent the daytime in the trees—here all introduced eucalyp- 
tus—and returned to his hut at night to sleep. He said he might 
be able to get it in the afternoon when it came to the hut to take 
a piece of banana. Much as I wanted to get on my way, I delayed 
my departure till the afternoon on the off chance. 
Sifakas, of which there are two species and many races, are 
lemurs which belong to the same family as the indris, and progress 
in an upright position. Unlike the true lemurs, they subsist mainly 
on leaves, flowers, and bark, with perhaps a small quantity of 
wild fruits. An interesting feature of the sifakas is that within 
natural barriers such as rivers there are very distinct races with 
varying color patterns ranging from almost wholly white to 
wholly black, and some with chestnut markings. In this variability 
and in their diet they may be said to be the Madagascar counter- 
part of the African Colobus Monkeys. 
The tame Verreaux’s Sifaka, which originally came from the 
Morondava district, was late in returning to his master’s hut, but 
I eventually got it and was pleased that I had waited as it was a 
most interesting creature. 
We set off much too late to reach Tananarive, so spent the 
night at Ambositra. Here I heard that war clouds were gathering 
and that certain people were already on the verge of panic, sus- 
pecting every foreigner to be engaged in spy activities. 
On reaching Tananarive I made immediate arrangements to go 
to Lake Alaotra to begin collecting waterfowl. I had already 
despatched a great pile of packing-cases, dismantled into sections, 
to the lake ready for making into suitably sized travelling boxes 
for waterfowl. 
I notified the London Missionary Society missionary at Imeri- 
mandroso on the lakeside, with whom I had arranged to stay, that 
I was arriving on a certain date. But before this came to pass I 
