PREVOST'S BROADBILL 281 



I have already pointed out somewhere in this book that 

 Madagascar is a kind of museum of several forms of animal life 

 found nowhere else in the world ; for among mammals there 

 are some of the lemuridae, especially the aye-aye ; also some 

 of the centetidae ; among the insects, the uranid butterfly ; 

 while there are several birds, which are isolated, having no near 

 relation, so that new genera, and even new families, have had to 

 be formed for their classification. Among these latter, and 

 inhabiting the eastern forests, is Prevost's broadbill (Euryceros 

 prevosti). The zoological affinities of this remarkable bird were 

 for long a puzzle to ornithologists ; but it is so different from 

 the wood-swallows, starlings and shrikes, which groups are 

 nearest to it, that the French naturalists have formed a special 

 family (Eurycerotidce) for this solitary genus and species. This 

 bird is remarkable for a beak formed like a very capacious 

 helmet, strongly compressed and swelled towards the base, 

 which advances to just as far as the eyes ; and its very convex 

 edge is terminated by a sharp hook. This extraordinary form 

 of the beak is seen best in the skeleton, in which the beak is seen 

 to be considerably larger than the skull. The bird is as large as 

 a starling, velvety black in colour, with a saddle-shaped patch 

 of light brown on the back. The large beak is steely blue in 

 colour, and pearly, like the inside of an oyster shell. Such 

 specialised birds as well as the other peculiar forms of life 

 speak of high antiquity and of the long isolation of their habitat 

 from continental influences. 



Four or five days of hard travelling brought us to Amb6hi- 

 manga, an-dia, so called to distinguish it from the old Hova 

 capital of the same name, north of Antananarivo. As on many 

 previous occasions, we had long delays in crossing rivers, from 

 the fewness and smallness of the canoes available. We were 

 detained for three hours crossing the Mananjara, which, 

 although so far from the sea, was still a wide river, with a 

 powerful current and full of rapids and rocks. We had time to 

 notice and examine carefully a graceful plant which covered 

 the stones in the water ; this looked like a fern but is not one 

 from one to two feet long and with very thick and fleshy stem 

 and fronds. On examining one of these, I found it to be the 

 home of a variety of minute animals ; some of them cater- 

 pillars, which were burrowing into the stalk; others, small 



