From what has been already said it will be seen that the flora of Madagascar presents many new and striking forms of vegetable life; but its fauna is still more noteworthy, for it presents one of the strangest anomalies in the geographical distribution of animals. This zoological peculiarity consists as much, or more, in what is wanting, as in what is present. Separated from Africa by a channel not three hundred miles broad at one point, we should have supposed that Madagascar would partake to a great extent of the same characteristics, as regards animal life, as the neighbouring continent. But it is really remarkably different. There is a strange absence of the larger species of mammalia, and this statement applies not only to the forests but to all parts of the island, the bare highlands of the interior and the extensive lower plains of the west and the south. [Sidenote: ABSENCE OF LARGE ANIMALS] First of all, the large carnivora are all wanting; there are no lions, leopards, tigers, panthers, or hyenas. The large thick-skinned animals, so plentiful in the rivers and forests of Africa, have no representatives in Madagascar; no elephant browses in the woods, no rhinoceros or hippopotamus lazily gambols in the streams, although there was a small species of the last-named pachyderm which was living during the latest quaternary epoch. The numerous species of fleet-footed animals—antelope, gazelle, deer, and giraffe, zebra and quagga—which scour the African plains are entirely absent; and the ox, the sheep, the goat, the horse and the ass have all been introduced, the three former from Africa and the others from Europe. The order of mammalia most developed here is the quadrumana, but this, again, is represented by but a single division, the lemurs and their allies, which are the most characteristic animals of the island. There are no true monkeys, baboons, or apes, nor do the gorilla or chimpanzee put in an appearance. The lemurs are very distinct from all these and are pretty creatures, bearing little resemblance to the half-human, grotesque appearance of many of the quadrumanous animals, or to the savage character of the larger apes and baboons. They vary in size from that of a large monkey to species not larger than a rat. They are mostly gentle in disposition, and some kinds are tame enough to be kept about the house as pets. [Illustration: FAMILY TOMB OF THE LATE PRIME MINISTER, ANTANÀNARÌVO The tomb is under the upper open arcade] [Illustration: ROYAL TOMBS IN THE COURTYARD OF THE PALACE, ANTANÀNARÌVO On the right is that of Radàma I, on the left that of Ràsohèriva] [Sidenote: MADAGASCAR AND AFRICA]