Flora.— The most striking feature in the vegetation is a belt of dense forest with an average breadth of 15 to 20 miles passing round the whole island, and broken only by a gap in the northwest, where the two ends of the forest overlap. It is found at all levels from 6,000 feet to the water's edge, which it touches on the northeast, where it reaches its greatest breadth of 40 miles. The trees of this forest include many species of lofty palms, hard wooded exogens supplying a great variety of beautifully veined and durable timber and a large number of trees remarkable for the splen did character of their blossoms. Of all the trees of Madagascar the most striking is the ravinala or traveler's tree (Urania speciosa): it resembles a palm, its stem being crowned by a semi-circle of oblong leaves spread out verti cally in a fan shape. It owes its name to the fact that the traveler may supply himself with water from it by piercing or breaking the lower ends of the leaf-stalks.
Madagascar has a singularly local fauna which, although upon the whole related to Africa, is so peculiar to itself that, with a few neighboring islets, it forms a very distinct sub province of the African region. Its characteris tics show plainly that the separation of the island from the continent occurred at a very ancient time. Another singular feature is the presence of various forms of animal life repre sented elsewhere only in Oriental Australian regions, with a marked resemblance in a few animals, for example, the boas, to South Amer ica. From this it is plausibly argued that in
early Tertiary times there was a land connection between Madagascar and India and the region thence to Australia, now presented only by the islands of the Malayan Archipelago. (See LEmtnuA). In its mammals Madagascar is singular in what it lacks, as well as in what it possesses. It has none of the cattle, equine animals, elephants, rhinoceroses, hogs or even rodents of Africa, except a mouse or two; no lion or true cat or dog of any kind; and no monkeys. On the other hand it has sev eral small insectivora, closely allied to tropical American species; the great majority of all the lemurs, the few outsiders being in Africa and the Orient; and several viverrine quadrupeds, which there takes the place of the predatory cats. The modern birds are less striking in their peculiarities, but in the zoological era immediately preceding the present the island possessed those huge ratite birds, the epiornis. and its relatives, which gave rise to the story of the roc. Many forms of huge land tortoises were also members of this singular fauna. The fishes, amphibians, reptiles and lower forms are largely peculiar.
Crocodiles are numerous in the rivers and lakes, and many species of lizards, chameleons and tree-frogs abound in the forests. Among the insects are numerous brilliantly colored beetles, butterflies, moths, flies, locusts and spiders, venomous species of the latter as well as scorpions and centipedes being present. See