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CHAPTER XV. 
FLORA, FAUNA, AND LANGUAGE. 
The Flora of Madagascar attracted the notice 
of botanists and eminent men of science so far 
back as the time of Linnaeus, and we find Com- 
merson, in a letter to that famous naturalist, 
testifying to the vastness of the field which the 
island opened up for the study of plant and 
insect life; and another well - known authority 
(Dr Vinson), who went up to the capital in 
1864, thus remarks in closing his notice of the 
flora of this country : “Building timbers, woods 
for cabinet work and for enrichments; edible 
and medicinal, textile and useful plants,—all 
abound in this favoured country, which nour¬ 
ishes at its base all the vegetation of the tro¬ 
pics, and at its summit that of the temperate 
zones/’ 
Along the east coast the orange and citron 
are found in rich profusion, and groves of these 
trees are constantly met with in the earlier 
