Our third day’s voyage took us again along a very beautiful extent of park-like scenery. All yesterday afternoon we were gradually approaching a long line of blue hills running north-north-west and south-south-east, and this morning we got nearer to them. They appeared to be about a thousand feet high, and almost covered with dense forest, with patches of rock and red clay showing here and there. Landing at noon for lunch among magnificent trees, I noticed that these were swarming with ants, which covered the trunks and devoured every fruit as soon as it became ripe. [Illustration: THE FÒSA It is the largest Madagascar carnivore, and is like a small jaguar] [Illustration: MALAGASY OXEN Note their large humps and horns] [Sidenote: A FIERCE ANIMAL] During this journey to the north-west, we saw no mammals except herds of oxen; but as there _are_ a few others, it will be fitting here to say something about the largest carnivorous animal found in the island, especially as this district is its special habitat. This creature is called by the people, _Fòsa_ (_Cryptoprocta ferox_), and although small is very ferocious, as its specific name denotes. The fòsa differs from most of the felidæ by the greater elongation of the body, including the head, and it is plantigrade, like the bears, and not digitigrade, like the majority of the cats. In its structure it resembles the jaguar, and in its colouring the puma, indeed it is very like a small jaguar, as it has thick glossy fur of a tawny-brown, which becomes somewhat darker under the body. Its total length is four feet eight inches, but of this the tail occupies two feet two inches, and it stands about one foot three inches high. For its size, the animal is powerful, but it is not dangerous to man, except when it is wounded, or at the breeding season. It is destructive to poultry and small animals, and it is able to emit a very fetid odour from an anal pouch, with which fowls are said to be killed. Examples of the fòsa have been seen in the outskirts of the upper belt of forest on the east side of the island; and of somewhat larger size than the dimensions already given. A specimen I once saw was of a beautiful black colour, but I believe this was only a variety, and not a distinct species from the brown animal. The fòsa is much dreaded by the Malagasy, and, from its mode of attack, appears to be like an immense weasel, attacking large animals, such as the wild boar and even oxen. Like the aye-aye among the quadrumana, and many of the native birds, the fòsa has no near relative, and therefore a new family had to be formed for it, of which it is the only genus and species.