236 TRANSACTIONS. 
4th of April, 1890. 
Major BownEN, Vice-President, in the Chair. 
New Member.—-Mr John Thorburn Johnstone of Moffat. 
Donations.— Annual Report of the Canadian Institute, 1888-9 ; 
Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 1888-9 ; and 
Mr 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. Zhe Flora and Fauna of Madagascar. By G. F. Scott 
ELuioT, B.Sc. 
Nothing would seem to be easier than for a botanist 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 different 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, Ipomza Pes Capre 
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 crab, of which myriads are 
always running up and down just outside the reach of the waves. 
It is a ferocious little animal, and snaps its extremely small claws 
whenever one approaches, while gradually sidling away into the 
water, There are in places very dense brushwood, formed chiefly 
