48 BIRDS. 



country swarm with rats and mice ; and every traveller has 

 stories to relate of his adventures with these creatures. " A 

 night with the rats " is one of the never-failing Madagascar 

 "traveller's tales." 



Birds. — We now turn to the birds, in which the island is 

 much richer than in mammals, although here, again, there 

 are none of the largest forms, and many of the most brilliantly 

 coloured and striking tropical genera are absent. There is 

 no living representative of the Struthidce, either ostrich, casso- 

 wary, or emu ; neither are there any of the trogons, golden- 

 pheasants, or birds-of-paradise of the Eastern hemisphere, or 

 the toucans or humming-birds of the Western. But there is 

 a large variety of the order Passeres, or perching birds, and 

 many of these, although of moderate size, are beautifully 

 coloured ; and many of them, in common with birds of other 

 orders — the Eaptores, the Waders, and the Gallinse — are of 

 remarkable forms. No fewer than 8 8 genera and in species 

 of land-birds are already known, and the number is being 

 added to every year. But " the number of peculiar genera 

 in Madagascar constitutes one of the main features of its 

 ornithology, and many of these are so isolated that it is very 

 difficult to classify them, and they remain to this day a puzzle 

 to ornithologists." * Of the 1 1 1 known species, 5 o belong 

 to 33 genera which are peculiar to the island, and 56 to 

 peculiar species, the genera of which are found also in Africa 

 and South-eastern Asia ; and thus, says Mr. Wallace, " there 

 is an amount of specialty hardly to be found in the birds of 

 any other part of the globe. Out of in land-birds in 

 Madagascar, only 1 2 are identical with species inhabiting the 

 adjacent continents, and most of these belong to powerful- 

 winged or wide-ranging forms." What is most astonishing 

 is that many of the birds are much more nearly allied to 

 South Asian or Malayan forms than to those of Africa, while 

 many are of such doubtful affinities that it is yet quite unde- 

 cided what family they belong to, several requiring a distinct 

 family to be formed for their reception ; and the nearest 

 affinities of others are found in South America, and even in 

 the Pacific Islands. So many perfectly isolated forms are 

 * Wallace, op. cit., vol. i. p. 274. 



