A NATURALIST IN 

 MADAGASCAR 



CHAPTER I 



INTRODUCTORY 



THE great African island of Madagascar has become 

 well known to Europeans during the last half-century, 

 and especially since the year 1895, when it was made 

 a colony of France. During that fifty years many books the 

 majority of these in the French language have been written 

 about the island and its people ; what was formerly an almost 

 unknown country has been traversed by Europeans in all 

 directions ; its physical geography is now clearly understood ; 

 since the French occupation it has been scientifically surveyed, 

 and a considerable part of the interior has been laid down with 

 almost as much detail as an English ordnance map. But al- 

 though very much information has been collected with regard 

 to the country, the people, the geology, and the animal and 

 vegetable productions of Madagascar,, there has hitherto been 

 no attempt, at least in the English language, to collect these 

 many scattered notices of the Malagasy fauna and flora, and 

 to present them to the public in a readable form. 



In several volumes of a monumental work that has been in 

 progress for many years past, written and edited by M. Alfred 

 Grandidier, 1 the natural history and the botany of the island are 

 being exhaustively described in scientific fashion ; but these 

 great quartos are in the French language, while their costly 

 character renders them unknown books to the general reader. 

 It is the object of the following pages to describe, in as familiar 

 and popular a fashion as may be, many of the most interesting 

 facts connected with the exceptional animal life of Madagascar, 

 and with its forestal and other vegetable productions. During 

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