196 Rev. J. SibreCj Jr.^ on the 



various, and peculiarly organized creatures could have been 

 gradually developed in a connected fauna, of which we have 

 here but the fragmentary remains/^ 



Many lists of Madagascar birds have been published by 

 travellers and naturalists. Flacourt, in his ' Histoire de 

 Madagascar^ (1661), enumerated in the 11th chapter of 

 that work 56 birds under their local names ; in the follow- 

 ing century Brisson described 31 species, which had been 

 sent to Reaumur by Poivre ; and in 1840 Sganzin published 

 in the Strasburg Natural History Society's ' Memoires ' the 

 Malagasy and French names of 81< birds. But it was in 

 1848 that there appeared, in a German review, the first de- 

 tailed and systematic list of the birds of Madagascar, pre- 

 pared by Dr. G. Hartlaub, comprising 94 species. This list 

 was afterwards increased, in a more complete work by the 

 same savant in 1861, to 153 species. Other lists were pub- 

 lished — by Jules Verreaux in 1865; by M. Grandidier in 

 1867 ; and especially by Messrs. Schlegel and Pollen, who, 

 in their fine work ' Becherches sur la Faune de Madagascar,' 

 in 1868, gave descriptions, more or less complete, of 143 

 species of Madagascar birds, together with figures of many 

 of them; and in 1877 Dr. Hartlaub published a second and 

 enlarged edition of his ' Ornithological Fauna of Madagascar,' 

 in which 214 species of birds found in the island are de- 

 scribed. But by far the most elaborate and complete account 

 of Malagasy birds (as well as of all the animal life of the 

 country) is contained in the unequalled six volumes (four of 

 plates and two of text) forming part of M. Grandidier's great 

 work on Madagascar, still in process of publication. In these 

 plates not only are the external forms and plumage of the 

 birds shown in their varied and beautifuh colours, but their 

 osteology is fully given, and, in the case of the most curious 

 birds, their anatomy is also carefully delineated. 



It is to French naturalists that the discovery of the greater 

 part of the Malagasy birds is due : to Poivre and Sonnerat, 

 Bernier, Goudot and Rousseau, and Lantz, Humblot and 

 Grandidier. But much has also been done by others, espe- 

 cially by Crossley, Edward Newton, Plant, Waters, and 



