BIRD LIFE IN MADAGASCAR 279 



(VIII. and IX.) speaking of the forest, it is by no means destitute 

 of bird life during the warm months of the year. And yet I 

 have never been able satisfactorily to account for the compara- 

 tive fewness of birds in Madagascar, notwithstanding the number 

 of species. It can hardly be from want of appropriate food, for 

 the great variety of trees and shrubs must surely supply suffi- 

 cient in the way of fruits and berries and seeds, to say nothing 

 of caterpillars, and insects in various stages of development. 

 My friend, Mr Cory, an enthusiastic naturalist and sportsman, 

 wrote to me : "I think the want of bird life in Madagascar is 

 very marked when compared with England, and I was much 

 struck with this on my first arrival. I have been in the forest 

 at all times of the year ; and although there are a good many 

 birds in summer, yet if you try bird's-nesting here, you will soon 

 find out how few and far between the nests are." I have some- 

 times thought that these facts may be partly explained by the 

 rather large proportion of rapacious birds in Madagascar to the 

 general air-fauna twenty-two, as compared with two hundred 

 and ten species known to inhabit the island ; for, leaving out 

 the twenty-eight species of oceanic birds, we have nearly a 

 seventh of the birds belonging to rapacious kinds, a proportion 

 which would be still greater if we reckon, as we might well do, 

 several of the eight species of shrikes as rapacious. As we shall 

 see in the next chapter, there appear to be a far larger number 

 of birds on the western side of the island than are found in the 

 eastern forests. 



With regard to the paucity of insect life in the forest, I think 

 it has been clearly shown by eminent naturalists like Dr Wallace 

 and the late Mr Bates, that dense wood is not favourable to such 

 life ; but that in open spaces in the forest, where sunshine can 

 penetrate, and where there is also water, there is where you 

 may hope to find butterflies, moths, and various handsome 

 flies, bees and wasps ; while patches of cleared forest and felled 

 trees are the most favourable hunting-grounds for the numerous 

 species of beetle and also of ants. In travelling from the east 

 coast to Imerina seventeen years later than this journey, on a 

 route about eighty miles north of that described in this chapter, 

 we found numerous butterflies, a dozen species at least, in some 

 localities ; and the voice of birds was heard all along the road, 

 the noisy call of the Kankdfotra cuckoo, how-how, kow-kow, 



