FLORA AND FAUNA 
47 
that good specimens can at present be obtained without 
difficulty for 40 or 50 shillings. 
The order of Insectivora, which apparently embraces 
mammals of a very early geologic age, is represented in 
Madagascar by the tenrecs [Centetes^ Hejnicentetes). In 
external habit they remind us of our hedgehogs, the 
snout protrudes greatly, the tail is rudimentary, the skin 
is protected by prickles. These animals dig in the earth 
after the manner of our moles, and are said to pass 
the dry season, that is from April to November, fast 
asleep in their places of concealment. This supposition, 
which has passed into most works on Natural History, 
does not appear to me to be fully established; at any rate 
I obtained many living tenrecs in July and August, which 
did not show the least disposition to fall into a state of 
somnolence. 
Centetes ecaudahcs occurs the most frequently; the 
smaller Hemicentetes, with bright bands on the hind part 
of the body, is said to be indigenous also in Reunion 
and Mauritius, but was probably introduced there. 
The Ungulata are absent, with the exception of one 
representative of the wart hogs [Pota 7 noch(]eriLs Edwardsii). 
These wild swine live in the neighbourhood of the woods 
and are said to inflict much damage by rooting up 
the adjacent plantations. From the point of view of 
geographical zoology the presence of a wild hog on the 
soil of Madagascar comes somewhat unexpectedly, because 
the original home of these animals seems to have been 
further north, at a time when the island was already cut 
loose from the continent. We may suppose, considering 
the half-aquatic habits of the river hogs, that immigration 
took place by water. The same holds also in the case 
of the hippopotamus, which once inhabited Madagascar, 
but has long been extinct. Grandidier discovered the 
remains of a small species [Hippopotamus Leine^dii) in 
the south-west in alluvial deposits. Since then the Rev. 
