Among the most beautiful birds in Madagascar are several species of the rollers (_Coraciadæ_), so called from their peculiar habit of flight. The five species found here live mostly on the ground and come out chiefly at dusk. The _Vòrondrèo_, or Kiròmbo roller, plays a great part in the chants and religious recitations and folk-tales of the Malagasy. These birds live chiefly on grasshoppers, but they also devour chameleons and lizards. When they cry they puff out the throat, so that this portion of the body has the appearance of a pendent bag. The colouring of this species is perhaps the “quietest” of the five, having a good deal of slaty-grey on head and breast. But both it and its companions have shades of “shot” colour, purple and green, or red and green, as looked at in different lights. The others exhibit larger masses of bright colour; the violet roller having, as its name denotes, a good deal of violet or purple tinting. Four of them are rather large birds, but the scaly ground roller is small, with a curious collar of black and white feathers, reminding one of the strange neck and throat appendages of some of the paradise birds. Other birds we saw and heard that day were the _Railòvy_, a species of shrike, with long forked tail; the _Bolòky_, or grey parrot, with a long repeated whistle, as if going up the gamut; the _Vòrondrèo_, one of the rollers, with its prolonged whistle ending in a sudden drop; the _Parètika_, one of the warblers, with a creaky little short note, something like a child’s rattle; together with these sounds was the _kow-kow_ of the _Kankàfotra_ cuckoo, the varied mellow notes of the _Tolòho_ cuckoo, the cooing sound of the _Fòny_, or wood-pigeon, and also the call of one of the hawks. [Sidenote: MR BARON] [12] Mr Baron was for thirty-five years a missionary of the L.M.S. A good writer, an eloquent speaker, and an earnest missionary, he was also a very able botanist and an accomplished geologist, and at the time of his lamented death, in 1907, he probably knew more about both these sciences, as regards Madagascar, than any other European. On account of his researches, and the large collections he made, he was elected a Fellow of both the Linnæan and the Geological Societies, honours never conferred except for substantial scientific work. He also received a specially fitted microscope from the Royal Society for petrological study, in which he became very proficient. During his residence in Madagascar he sent home many hundreds of plants, a great proportion of which were new to science, and also a large number of rock sections for microscopical and polariscope study. Twice he was offered valuable positions under the French Government in this island, but he was too true a missionary to give up Christian work. [Illustration: Chamæleons CHAMÆLEON LONGICAUDA _⅔ full size_ _Heads, from above_ CHAMÆLEON WILLSII] CHAPTER XI FOREST SCENES