236 Transactions. 



4/7/ of April, 1890. 



Major BowDEN, Vice-President, in the Chair. 



New Member.— -Mr John Thorburn Johnstone of Moffat. 



Z>i';?rt/'/(7«5-.— Annual Eeport of the Canadian Institute, 1888-9 ; 



Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 1888-9 ; and 



jMr J. J. Reid's paper on Mouswald and its Barons. Mr Scott 



Elliot presented a copy of Lees's Yorkshire Naturalists' Union, 



and botanical papers from Mr J. G. Baker, F.R.S., the author 



of them. 



Communications. 



I. The Flora and Faima of Madagascar. By G. F. Scott 

 Elliot, B.Sc. 

 Nothing would seem to be easier than for a Ijotanist to 

 describe the flora of a tropical island, but in reality nothing is so 

 hard as to give an account of so strange and outlandish a 

 vegetation. The flora of Madagascar contains probably 6000 

 or 7000 species, of which 10 per cent, are endemic. Most 

 of these special forms, moreover, are so strange and extra- 

 ordinary that anything like a detailed description is impossible. 

 They are in • fact vegetable kangaroos. I shall simply try 

 to describe the vegetation, or rather the diff'erent vegetations, as 

 one sees them. The island consists of an enormous mass of granitic 

 mountains rising to a height of 10,000 feet in isolated peaks, but 

 usually forming an irregular tableland or mountainous plateau about 

 4000 feet above the sea level. The flanks of this tableland are 

 covered with dense and luxuriant forest, which thus forms a belt 

 all round the island and limits the bare upland plateaux of the 

 centre. Between this forest and the sea is a rather wide stretch of 

 sandy plains broken by lagoons, brackish and freshwater lakes, 

 and intersected in all directions by deep and broad rivers. 



The flora of this sandy littoral is very monotonous. There is 

 usually a stretch of short turf with Phaseolus, Ipomsea Pes Caprse 

 and other plants with long trailing runners rooting at intervals. 

 Our English sandpiper is common along the shore, but the 

 commonest creature is a small red ci-ab, of which myriads are 

 always running up and down just outside the reach of the waves. 

 It is a ferocious little animal, and snajjs its extremely small claws 

 whenever one approaches, while gradually sidling away into the 

 water. There are in places very dense brushwood, formed chiefly 



