Besides the remains of hippopotami, Mr Rosaas, for many years a missionary of the Norwegian Society, and stationed at Antsìrabé, obtained considerable quantities of the bones of extinct gigantic birds. It is about eighty years ago (circa 1834 and 1835) since it became known to naturalists, through the discovery of portions of massive leg-bones and fragments of enormous eggs, that there was evidence of the former existence in Madagascar of large birds. For a quarter-century after that date, the dislike of the heathen queen to all foreign influence prevented fuller investigations of a scientific character. But since the year 1861 further researches, and excavations made in widely separated localities, have shown that several species of these great birds existed until a comparatively recent period in many parts of the island. It was evident that they were flightless, and were allied to the ostrich, and still more closely to the recently extinct Dinornis of New Zealand. The generic name of Æpyornis was given to these birds, of which several species were discovered, ranging in size from that of a bustard to a bird exceeding an ostrich in height and also in the massive character of the skeleton. The largest species was accordingly named Æpyornis maximus. Subsequently, the remains of still larger birds were discovered and these were called Æ. titan and Æ. ingens, the largest of them being about ten feet in height. More recent and exact examination has shown that the twelve species which had been formed must be reduced to a smaller number, as some of the lesser kinds have been proved to be young and immature forms of the larger species. From the collection of hundreds of bones, and, in a very few cases, complete skeletons, it is now clear that several species of these great birds once roamed over the marshes and valleys of Madagascar, as the ostrich does still in Africa, and the cassowary in Australia and some East Indian islands.
EXTINCT ANIMALS
The egg of one of the species, probably of the largest one, is the largest of all known eggs, its longer axis being twelve and a quarter inches, and the shorter one nine and three-eighths inches; it thus had a capacity equal to six ostrich eggs, and to one hundred and forty-eight of those of the domestic fowl.[22] From the marks of cutting with a sharp instrument seen on some of the bones, it seems highly probable that these great birds, as well as the hippopotamus, gigantic tortoises, and other animals, were living when the first human inhabitants of the island appeared upon the scene; and doubtless this was also the reason of the disappearance of both birds and beasts, as they were hunted and used for food.
[21] Since the French occupation this bath-house has been removed, and the mass of lime accretion has been broken up for use.
[22] The following appeared in Punch, 22nd July 1893:—
“Good Egg-sample!—One egg was sold the other day for £160, 18s., vide Times of Wednesday last. The egg was a perfect specimen of that rara avis in terris, the gigantic Æpyornis maximus of Madagascar. What did Mr Stevens do with it? Did he have it made into several omelettes for a breakfast party of a dozen? Of course it was a perfectly fresh egg, and the only thing at all high about it was the price.”
CHAPTER XVII
VOLCANIC DISTRICT
WITHIN a few miles of Antsìrabé are two crater lakes. The nearer and larger of these is called Andraikìba, which lies distant about four miles due west. This is a beautiful sheet of water, blue as the heavens in colour, in shape an irregular square, but curving round to the north-west, where it shallows into a marsh, which is finally absorbed in rice-fields. The lake is said to be of profound depth, but the hills surrounding it are not very lofty, rising only about two hundred feet above the surface of the water, from which they ascend steeply. Fish and water-fowl, and crocodiles also, are very abundant in and on its waters.
But the most interesting natural curiosity to be seen in the neighbourhood of Antsìrabé is the crater-lake of Trìtrìva. This is situated about ten miles to the south-west, a pleasant ride of two hours by palanquin. Travelling at first in a westerly direction, the road then turns more to the south-west, and skirts the southern foot of the old volcano of Vòhitra. Passing about a mile or two south of the high ground round the southern shores of the Andraikìba lake, the road gradually ascends to a higher level of country, so that in about an hour and a half’s time we are nearly as high as the top of Vòhitra—probably about five hundred feet. Reaching a ridge between two prominent hills, we catch our first sight of Trìtrìva, now from two to three miles distant in front of us. From this point it shows very distinctly as an oval-shaped hill, its longest axis lying north and south, and with a great depression in its centre, the north-eastern edge of the crater wall being the lowest part of it, from which point it rises gradually southwards and westwards, the western edge being at the centre from two to three times the height of the eastern side. To the north are two much smaller cup-like hills, looking as if the volcanic forces, after the main crater had been formed, had become weaker and so been unable to discharge any longer by the old vent, and had therefore formed two newer outlets at a lower level.