While on the subject of serpents, I will add here some particulars my friend, Mr Houlder, gives of yet another of these reptiles seen on this east coast, but farther north. This kind is called _Akòma_ (_Pelophilus madagascariensis_), and appears to be a species of boa, killing fowls, rats and other creatures first by crushing them, and then covering them with saliva before swallowing. At a village he stayed in, my friend found the people much excited about a large serpent seen in their neighbourhood. Sending out his men to find it, “at last the creature was seen. Yes, there he was, a villainous-looking monster, apparently asleep, coiled up among the bushes with his great flat head in the middle of the circle. The gun was loaded with several pistol bullets. Luckily it was, perhaps, for the duck-shot sent into him at the next discharge only just penetrated his thick scaly skin. Advancing to within a couple of yards or so, I raised the gun. Bang! Away went the onlookers for their lives. Peering through the smoke which was slowly moving away, I could just see the head coming towards me. Enough, I bolted too. This caused a second stampede. But it was a groundless alarm. I looked back, and saw that the poor creature was incapable of doing serious injury. His back was hopelessly broken. No other shot was necessary.” Mr Houlder did not get the serpent to his house without difficulty, owing to the terror of the bearers even when it was dead. “It was a medium-sized specimen, about nine feet long and as thick round the middle as the calf of a man’s leg. On each side of its body was a long yellow, black, and reddish chain-like marking on a brown ground; and near the extremity of its tail were two abortive claws. Muscular motion did not cease until long after it was dead.” [Sidenote: LEMURS] Although we did not see any lemurs in the coast woods, one species at least is, or, at least, was, sometimes met with—viz. the white-fronted lemur (_Lemur mongos_, _var. albifrons_). Several specimens of this kind have been brought to England from time to time, and have been kept in the Regent’s Park Zoological Gardens from as long ago as 1830; so that their appearance and habits are as well known to English people as to the Malagasy themselves. Their habits are simple enough. They often exhibit great vivacity, and are much given to leaping from one object to another, in which they are aided by the pad-like structure of the soles of their four hands. They are very good-natured and tame and full of fun while still young, but become cross and vicious when old. We shall, however, see and hear more of the lemurs when we come into the denser forests.