BIRD LIFE IN MADAGASCAR
With regard to the silence of the wood just spoken of, and the apparent dearth of animal life, it must be remembered that, in addition to the character of the mammalian fauna above-mentioned, our journey was made in the cold season, when all life is much less in evidence. As we have seen in the [chapters VIII.] and [IX.], speaking of the forest, it is by no means destitute of bird life during the warm months of the year. And yet I have never been able satisfactorily to account for the comparative fewness of birds in Madagascar, notwithstanding the number of species. It can hardly be from want of appropriate food, for the great variety of trees and shrubs must surely supply sufficient in the way of fruits and berries and seeds, to say nothing of caterpillars, and insects in various stages of development. My friend, Mr Cory, an enthusiastic naturalist and sportsman, wrote to me: “I think the want of bird life in Madagascar is very marked when compared with England, and I was much struck with this on my first arrival. I have been in the forest at all times of the year; and although there are a good many birds in summer, yet if you try bird’s-nesting here, you will soon find out how few and far between the nests are.” I have sometimes thought that these facts may be partly explained by the rather large proportion of rapacious birds in Madagascar to the general air-fauna—twenty-two, as compared with two hundred and ten species known to inhabit the island; for, leaving out the twenty-eight species of oceanic birds, we have nearly a seventh of the birds belonging to rapacious kinds, a proportion which would be still greater if we reckon, as we might well do, several of the eight species of shrikes as rapacious. As we shall see in the [next chapter], there appear to be a far larger number of birds on the western side of the island than are found in the eastern forests.
With regard to the paucity of insect life in the forest, I think it has been clearly shown by eminent naturalists like Dr Wallace and the late Mr Bates, that dense wood is not favourable to such life; but that in open spaces in the forest, where sunshine can penetrate, and where there is also water, there is where you may hope to find butterflies, moths, and various handsome flies, bees and wasps; while patches of cleared forest and felled trees are the most favourable hunting-grounds for the numerous species of beetle and also of ants. In travelling from the east coast to Imèrina seventeen years later than this journey, on a route about eighty miles north of that described in this chapter, we found numerous butterflies, a dozen species at least, in some localities; and the voice of birds was heard all along the road, the noisy call of the Kankàfotra cuckoo, kow-kow, kow-kow, constantly repeated; the mellow flute-like call of another cuckoo, the Tolòho, whose notes we heard all the way from Màhanòro; the chirp and whistle of the Railòvy, or king-crow, as well as the incessant twitter of many smaller birds. Then came frequently the wailing notes of the lemurs high up among the trees. This, however, was in November, when the hot season was advancing.
PROTECTIVE COLOURING
In our walks in the forest from the Ankèramadìnika Sanatorium (Chapters VIII. and IX.), we saw, it will be remembered, many cases of protective colouring. As we are again in the eastern forests, the following instances may also be noted. There is found in these woods a curious walking-stick mantis, about eight inches long and a quarter of an inch thick. It is exactly the colour of a dried branchlet or twig, with joints distinctly articulated like the nodes of many plants. The tail (if the end of the creature may be thus called) is rather more than an inch long, and is a hollow, canoe-shaped trough, somewhat resembling part of the bark torn off a twig. The legs are alate and spiny. At about two inches from the head are the wings and wing-sheaths, the latter being somewhat like obovate stipules about half-an-inch long, and the former marked with black and yellow and about an inch and a half long. When the wings are closed, it would take a very keen eye to discover the creature, as the part of the wing when closed is of the same colour as the rest of the body. The legs can be brought together lengthwise in front, and so appear to form a continuous part of the twig, especially as the femurs are hollowed out to form a socket for the head.
Another singular creature, a kind of springtail, known as Tsikòndry, is found on the branches of certain trees. The tail, which is about half-an-inch long—a little longer than the body of the insect—is a remarkable and curious appendage. This tail consists of a tuft of white threads, somewhat divided and fluffy at the tip, and which, at the pleasure of the insect, can be raised or lowered or spread out, the threads radiating in a circle from the root. This tail is so exactly like a lichen in appearance as thoroughly to deceive the eye. Unless a branch on which a number of these tsikòndry are seated is accidentally shaken, causing them to spring off, they would be passed by as lichens. The leap or spring is effected by a jerk of the tail.
PREVOST’S BROADBILL
I have already pointed out somewhere in this book that Madagascar is a kind of museum of several forms of animal life found nowhere else in the world; for among mammals there are some of the lemuridæ, especially the aye-aye; also some of the centetidæ; among the insects, the uranid butterfly; while there are several birds, which are isolated, having no near relation, so that new genera, and even new families, have had to be formed for their classification. Among these latter, and inhabiting the eastern forests, is Prevost’s broadbill (Euryceros prevosti). The zoological affinities of this remarkable bird were for long a puzzle to ornithologists; but it is so different from the wood-swallows, starlings and shrikes, which groups are nearest to it, that the French naturalists have formed a special family (Eurycerotidæ) for this solitary genus and species. This bird is remarkable for a beak formed like a very capacious helmet, strongly compressed and swelled towards the base, which advances to just as far as the eyes; and its very convex edge is terminated by a sharp hook. This extraordinary form of the beak is seen best in the skeleton, in which the beak is seen to be considerably larger than the skull. The bird is as large as a starling, velvety black in colour, with a saddle-shaped patch of light brown on the back. The large beak is steely-blue in colour, and pearly, like the inside of an oyster shell. Such specialised birds—as well as the other peculiar forms of life—speak of high antiquity and of the long isolation of their habitat from continental influences.
Four or five days of hard travelling brought us to Ambòhimànga, an-àla, so called to distinguish it from the old Hova capital of the same name, north of Antanànarìvo. As on many previous occasions, we had long delays in crossing rivers, from the fewness and smallness of the canoes available. We were detained for three hours crossing the Mànanjàra, which, although so far from the sea, was still a wide river, with a powerful current and full of rapids and rocks. We had time to notice and examine carefully a graceful plant which covered the stones in the water; this looked like a fern—but is not one—from one to two feet long and with very thick and fleshy stem and fronds. On examining one of these, I found it to be the home of a variety of minute animals; some of them caterpillars, which were burrowing into the stalk; others, small green creatures like caddis-worms, but with a transparent shell; others, minute leeches; others like the fresh-water hydra; with several other kinds, all finding house and provision on one frond in the rushing waters.