Birds of Madagascar. 213 



" Lkhimerisa^ kiug o£ Fiherenana, told me that one of his 

 ancestors Avas one day walking alone in one of his manioc 

 plantations at some distance from the royal village, when he 

 was surprised by a band of robbers on a marauding expedi- 

 tion from the B^ra country. They did not know the king, 

 who had nothing in his appearance or dress to denote his 

 rank. But seeing his thick chain of gold gleaming under 

 the knobs of hair covered with grease and white clay, they 

 took him unawares, speared him, and possessing themselves 

 of the coveted prize, threw the body into a liastily dug grave, 

 and decamped. How long he remained there no one knows ; 

 but he was not dead, only sei'iously wounded ; and on re- 

 covering consciousness, and seeing nothing but darkness 

 around him, and feeling the earth pressing heavily on his 

 chest, he believed himself in the other world. He was in 

 profound distress ; when, suddenly, he seemed to liear shrill 

 piercing cries, as if a flock of Parrots had passed over his 

 head. He listened attentively ; the cries which met his ears 

 were approaching nearer. Doubtless a babbling and restless 

 crowd of them was perched on a neighbouring tree. ' But 

 there are no Parrots in the other world,' thought our hero; 

 ' I am not dead !' He took courage, and freeing himself by 

 a tremendous effort from the layer of earth which covered 

 his body, he perceived the bright shining of the sun, in whose 

 rays the Parrots were sporting in the trees around him. 

 Hope revived within him, and he made his w^ay, not without 

 difficulty, to his village, where, after the needful care and 

 nursing, he eventually recovei'cd strength. In thankfulness 

 to the birds whose cries had roused him from his torpor and 

 given him courage to free himself from his tomb, he solemnly 

 vowed for himself and his descendants, to the latest genera- 

 tion, that they would never kill Parrots.'^ 



The Sooty Parrot is the larger of the two species, the Black 

 one being a third less in size ; but the latter is found in much 

 greater abundance, and in companies of from six to twelve 

 individuals. Both species are more terrestrial and less arbo- 

 real in their habits than most Parrots, nor do they make 

 much use of their claws to convey food to the mouth. These 

 birds have many provincial names besides the common one of 



