Two species of parrot are among the denizens of the Malagasy woods almost all over the country. These parrots are both of sober plumage, one being dark grey in colour, and the other slaty-black. But they are both intelligent birds, and can easily be taught to speak a few words and to whistle a tune. Their long whistling cry, as if going up the gamut, may be frequently heard in the outskirts of the woods. The grey species (_Coracopsis obscura_), which is the larger of the two, is _fàdy_ or sacred with the chiefs of the Vèzo Sàkalàva, as they say that one of their ancestors was saved from death by hearing the shrill piercing cries of a flock of these birds. The black species (_Coracopsis nigra_) is about a third less in size. Both kinds are more terrestrial and less arboreal in their habits than most parrots, nor do they make much use of their claws to convey food to the mouth. [Sidenote: AN AWKWARD CROSSING] The following day, passing over a river close by Ambòhimandròso, we had a most awkward bridge to cross. The native engineer had made it in two spans, not, however, in a straight line, but forming almost a right angle with each other. There were two or three massive balks of timber; but as these were not on a level, and some had slipped down three or four feet, the passage over was neither easy nor pleasant. Many of our bearers hesitated a good deal, as the bridge was sixteen to eighteen feet above the water, which roared like a mill-race between the rough pier and the river banks. All about this neighbourhood we noticed great numbers of ant-hills, of a much larger size than any we had seen elsewhere. They are conical mounds of a yard or so high, and are made by a white or yellowish ant, the one spoken of in a well-known Malagasy nursery tale. Breaking off a piece of one of the mounds, the ants could be seen in a state of great excitement, running in and out of the circular galleries which traverse their city. There are vast numbers of these ants in one ant-hill; they have a queen, who is nearly an inch long, while her subjects are not half that size. A serpent is said to live in many of these ant-nests, and the people maintain that it is eventually eaten by the inhabitants. Between the point we had now reached and the sea is a great wooded and rounded mountain which we could see about twenty miles away, and which we found was the celebrated Ambòndrombé, the Malagasy Hades, in which they believed that the souls of their ancestors had their abode. There are said to be large caves in the mountain, and it is regarded with much superstitious fear by the people. The mountain looked dark and gloomy, and has a very regularly curved outline from north to south, looking like the segment of an immense circle. [Illustration: MEMORIAL STONE, BÉTSILÉO PROVINCE The iron horns at the top are in place of bullocks’ horns usually placed on such memorials] [Sidenote: “BOUND BY BLOOD”]