FLORA AND FAUNA 
39 
be found, but as a whole the interior is treeless. Grass 
land predominates, and cattle are very numerous in some 
localities, owing to the extensive tracts of meadow-land. 
Reeds and rushes grow with great luxuriance in well-watered 
places. The stalks of the grasses and rushes are abundantly 
made use of in central Madagascar, where they are woven 
into durable mats. Where the land is well cultivated, as 
among the Hova and Betsileo tribes, rice, in its boundless 
paddy fields, forms a conspicuous feature of the vegetation. 
In the neighbourhood of dwellings the courtyards are often 
enclosed by agaves. The interior of the country is as a 
whole distinctly monotonous. 
The western slope is somewhat different in its botanical 
character from the eastern, being chiefly bush land, 
very poor in the south and only exhibiting beautiful 
meadow-land in Menabe, the best portion of Sakalavaland. 
In the character of the Flora we can recognize a 
connection with Africa in many points. There grows 
here, for example, a near relation of the dum palm 
[Hyphcene inadagascariensis)^ called Satrana by the natives. 
In this western region appear also many species of the 
baobab or monkey-bread tree, which are distinguished 
as Adansonia digitata^ A. madagascariensis^ A. Grand- 
idieri^ and A. Za. In the south grows the Didierea, a 
genus placed by Baillon among the Sapindaceae; it has 
a cactus-like shape and is 12 feet high. Up to 1200 ft., 
but rapidly disappearing at that height, the Ravenala or 
fan-palm appears again and again, and the Raphia 
palm, sometimes forming splendid forests, grows with 
striking luxuriance. 
The animal world of Madagascar has from the first 
furnished much matter for surprise to zoologists. It is 
so peculiar in kind that the dictum of Geoffrey St. Hilaire, 
that Madagascar forms, as it were, a Sixth Zoological 
Region of the world, has a good claim to acceptance. 
We shall consequently treat this subject in some detail. 
