MADAGASCAR (III)—CONTD. 285 
The Antandroy are an independent and restless race. They 
loathe any form of comfort, as they do clothes, and as long as they 
continue to expose their bodies to the sun they will doubtless re- 
main the most perfect specimens, physically, of all the Malagasy 
tribes. 
Under the existing conditions, with the whole country suffering 
from lack of food and water, I could see that collecting mammals 
was going to be very difficult. 
Inquiries elicited the information that Lake Anongy—a salt- 
water lake, some thirty miles to the east of Ambovombe—offered 
many advantages for collecting as there is a perennial fresh-water 
stream entering the lake, and it is surrounded by a wealth of 
xerophilous vegetation long since disappeared from the plains of 
Ambovombe. 
It was one and a half day’s march to the lake on a path that ran 
parallel to the sea, about seven miles inland. I had two Antandroy 
porters with me to carry my baggage. On the way we passed 
through a sandy belt studded with low bushes, many of which 
were festooned with the shells of land snails. This was the work 
of a spider (Olios) that makes use of these shells to lay its eggs 
in and to harbor the young. For safety the shells are hauled up 
and fixed to branches. 
The spider selects a shell under a bush, cleans it out, then 
climbs the bush to a point immediately over the shell, and lowers 
itself on to it by a web. Having securely attached the latter to the 
spiral of the shell, it runs up the web to the branch and hauls the 
shell up, making it fast so that the aperture is facing downwards. 
Over this the female weaves a protective cover of web and lays 
her eggs inside, where the young hatch in safety. 
Lake Anongy is one of the quaintest places I have seen. The 
locality is dotted with low stony kopjes which favor the growth 
of that extraordinary tree the didieria, known as Fantsilotra to the 
natives. Its long branches closely studded with thorns and minute 
leaves, waving in the breeze like the tentacles of an octopus, give 
a bizarre appearance to the landscape. The effect is particularly 
eerie on moonlit nights. These and several species of euphorbias 
predominate in the sub-desert scrub, which here reaches its 
