We were off early on Saturday morning, for, as we wished to get to the second town in size, Ampàrafàravòla, for Sunday, we had a long day’s journey northward of nine or ten hours before us. We were now skirting the western edge of the great level, now and then crossing patches of swamp, and then following the windings of a small river, which we had at last to cross by canoes. The whole country appeared to abound with wild birds of different kinds—herons, black and white storks, wild geese, wild ducks, partridges and many others. The fen country of the eastern midland counties of England, before the great drainage works were carried out and the waters led off to the sea, must have been very much like this Antsihànaka plain, which is certainly a paradise for sportsmen. There are said to be no fewer than thirty-four species of aquatic birds found on the Alaotra lake and in the surrounding marshy country. In the little museum at the L.M.S. College at Antanànarìvo we have, among other Malagasy birds’ eggs, a number from Antsihànaka, chiefly of water-fowl; most of these are white, showing probably that they are well protected and so have no need of imitative colouring. [Sidenote: WATER-BIRDS] Of these numerous ducks and geese, perhaps the whistling teal is the most common, not only in this province, but also in other marshy regions. In the western part of Imèrina the _Tsirìry_, as it is called, may be seen in flocks of five hundred together, so that a certain district probably gets its name of “Bé (many) tsiriry” from their numbers. At evening this bird and a tree duck (_Tahìa_) settle down in such numbers along the shore of the lake that one cannot walk by the waterside, for the ground is black with them. The tsiriry builds its nest on hillocks among the grass, and the young birds are taken to the water as soon as hatched. Another bird, the humped duck (_Aròsy_), lays its eggs in the crevices of rocks. Many of the native names of these wild fowl are imitative of their screaming cry; others are descriptive, as “white-wings,” “handsome-bird,” “white-eyes,” “many-shields,” etc. Besides the above-mentioned birds, there are also coots, water-hens, herons, ibises, grebes, snipes and curlews in the lake and the marshes. Of the white-backed duck (_Tafiòtra_) the natives say that the female bird experiences some difficulty in the laying of her eggs, which are very large in proportion to the size of her body; this is said to make her faint and become unconscious, so that she may be taken off her nest with the hand. On account this of peculiarity, the duck is _fàdy_, or tabooed, by the native women, who think that they would experience a similar difficulty in child-birth were they to eat the bird.