Bi7'ds of Madagascar. 195 



fold : firstj I purpose to collect together all the available 

 information about Malagasy birds^ as regards their forms, 

 their habits, their peculiarities, and their habitats. We 

 know as yet comparatively very little about these beautiful 

 and interesting living creatures, and what has been noted 

 about them is chiefly in the French language, in the works 

 M. Grandidier and M. Pollen. It will be of service, I think, 

 to translate this information, and to put together the little 

 we do know, and this may possibly induce other residents in 

 the island to note the habits and peculiarities of the birds 

 more minutely, and so eventually to widen our knowledge 

 of the subject. I also purpose to bring together the many 

 allusions to birds and their habits in Malagasy folk-lore and 

 proverbs, as well as to point out the descriptive character of 

 many of the native names for the birds of Madagascar, and 

 the light these names often throw upon the birds^ habits. 



And secondly, I shall give, as far as practicable, a complete 

 list of the birds of the island, as known and described up to 

 the present time, arranged according to the most recent 

 classification of competent ornithologists, together with both 

 their English and their scientific names, and also those by 

 which they are known in Hova or standard Malagasy, as well 

 •as in the various provincial dialects. This list will accom- 

 pany the chapters describing each of the Orders of the 

 Malagasy Birds. 



The avifauna of Madagascar comprises, as at present ascer- 

 tained, no less than 240 species, including sea-birds, among 

 which there are naturally numerous wide-ranging forms 

 common to many other countries; and among these latter 

 there is, of course, little that is peculiar or of any special 

 interest. It is among the land-birds proper, numbering 150 

 species — and omitting many shore- and water-birds, as well 

 as several of powerful flight, and therefore of wide distri- 

 bution — that we find some of those peculiar and isolated types 

 of bird-life which, as Mr. A. R. Wallace remarks, ^' speak 

 to us plainly of enormous antiquity, of long-continued isola- 

 tion, and not less plainly of a lost .... continental island 

 [or archipelago of large islands], in which so many, and 



