The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

FAUNA OF MADAUASCAE. 437an essentially oii>,'inal fauna.Thus half of the insular species consists of lemurians,niakis, and others, which are distinguished by their habits, resembling those ofsquirrels, their long tails, their enormous hands, their piercing cries and shrieks,like those of human beings; and lastly, their way of bounding along like kangaroos.There is a propithecan, a member of the indris family, which when closely pursuedby the hunter can clear thirty-two or thirty- three feet at a single spring.Thanksto its branchial membrane, forming a kind of parachute or bat's wing, it seemsrather to fly than to jiunp from tree to tree (Grandidier).All these species, each of which occupies a well-defined range, are easily tamed,and one of them, the babakoto {lichaitotm Indris), is even trained to catch birds,like the hawks and falcons of mediaeval times.* The aye-aye (c/iciromi/s), bestknown of all these lemurians, remains dormant throughout the dry season, andbuilds itself a real nest ; while the caffa inhabits rocky districts.The tendreks (taiirccs), or ceiiMes, another family of mammals allied to ourhedgebogs, and who sleep through the summer, are represented by several specieswbose congeners are found nowhere else nearer than Cuba and Haiti in the WestIndies.The pintsala, or cryptoproda ferox, a feline unknown elsewhere, and a fewcivet cats, are the only carnivorous mammals in the island, whose fauna alsoincludes some rats, mice, and the pofamoc/iwriis larvatus, or " masked " water-hog.The oxen and wild dogs often met in the forests or on the grassy steppes appearto be the descendants of domestic animals which have reverted to the savagestate, and some naturalists include a si^ccies of cat in the same category. TheEuropean rats, which accompany the Western peoples in all their migrations,have also already invaded Madagascar.More than half the species of birds are entirely peculiar to the great island,in their general physiognomy resembling the Malayan much more than theAfrican forms. Till recent times—that is to say, within, perhaps, the last two orthree centuries—there still survived the wpyornk maximus, a gigantic member ofthe ostrich family, which was known to the Arab travellers of the ^Middle Ages,and which figures in some of the marvellous tales of the " Thousand and OneNights." This is the legendary roc, or griffon of Marco Polo, which was said toseize elephants in its talons and carry them off to the summits of lofty mountains.Some of the eggs of the aepyornis have been found embedded in the alluvial soiland elsewhere, the largest of which, measuring nearly thirteen inches in length,was calculated to have a capacity of ten quarts and an eighth, or about as muchas six eggs of the ostrich, sixteen of the cassowary, and a hundred and fortyeightof the common hen. From the dimensions of the bones it is supposed thatthis gigantic bird must have been at least double the size of the largest ostrich.Grandidier, who first discovered the remains of the ;epyornis, has also broughtto light the skeletons of a huge turtle and of a variety of the hippopotamus.crocodile of Madagascar, which swarms in the rivers on both slopes of the island,appears to constitute an independent species, as does also a gigantic boa constrictor,which, according to the local legends, formerly attacked both men and cattle.• Hartmunn, Madagaicar and die lutein Seyehellat.The