400 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



confinement, is in a mood far from that state of calm collected- 

 ness favourable to the scientific examination of a novel situation. 

 Nor should it be lost .sight of that though the particular action 

 required may not be strange, yet taken in its near connection it 

 is, presumably, entirely foreign to the subject, and about as 

 meaningless as a camera or combination letter-lock would be to 

 an unsophisticated Patagonian." 



Through Western Madagascar. By Walter D. Marc use. 

 London: Hurst & Blackett. 1914. 7s. 6d. net. 

 Though largely devoted to the question of the exploitation of 

 commercial products, especially the American Lima or butter 

 bean (Phaseolus limensis), which has been acclimatized in 

 Madagascar, and is there cultivated with extraordinary success, 

 this book, most interestingly written, contains many notes of 

 interest on the fauna of an island one does not hear much about 

 as a rule. For instance, we are told of the wild cattle of the 

 Menabe country, estimated as at least 20,000 head, that a friend 

 of the author's, an old resident of the country, "is of the opinion 

 that they show a slight strain of the Zebu, and tells me that in 

 some of the specimens shot by him the faintest trace of a hump 

 is discernable." Now, as our author mentions, and as one of 

 the excellent photographic illustrations shows, the tame cattle 

 of Madagascar are typical humped Zebus ; does his friend's 

 observation mean that the wild animals breed with tame, and are 

 themselves of European stock, or does the humped breed when 

 wild lose the hump and assume the characters of ordinary cattle? 

 We may mention that in India, the home of the Zebu breed, 

 humpless specimens are common. The note that m handling a 

 wounded White-faced Tree-Duck (Dendrocycna viduata), one has 

 to look out for scratches, reminds one of Colonel Hawker's well- 

 known remark about a wounded Coot; this Duck is extra- 

 ordinarily like a Coot in contour and in its springing method of 

 diving, so that it is interesting to find it has evolved the same 

 method of defence. Crocodiles, it seems, are still the terrors of 

 Madagascar, being dreaded man-eaters ; native legends credit 

 the Cormorants, which our author says feed chiefly on the fresh- 

 water snail (Melanatria johnsoni), with watching over and warn- 

 ing these reptiles against man. 



