ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 329 
Cumate.—In Madagascar we possess very few precise dates 
bearing on the subject of climate, but what we know about 
t 
purpose. At Port Louis the average annual mean is 78° Fahrenheit 
in the shade, and the average daily range is from 70° at sunrise to 
86° in the middle of the afternoon. In Bourbon the mean tempe- 
rature throughout the year is stated to be 77° in the shade, that in 
ture and the days in length between one season of the year and 
another, so that Aspidium aculeatum or Lycopodium clavatum on @ 
Madagascar mountain would pass through a very much smaller 
from 
north-west. At this time there is a heavy fall of rai, which 
sometimes continues incessantly for several days. In Mauritius 
the annual rainfall varies from 146 inches on the east coast to 
88 inches at Port Louis. The vegetation of the forests, the 
abundant epiphytes, the tree-mosses, the filmy-ferns, and the 
viviparous character which so many of the ferns put on, show 
clearly that they get an abundant supply of moisture. 
ather colder, lasts from May to October, when 
he wind blows from the south-west; and as the summer advances 
th ' 
‘ze and nocturnal habits, of a kind that 
+» existence in the struggle for life either 
2u 
