AUTUMN AND WINTER 116 Old Towns—Ancient and Modern Tombs—Memorial Stones—Great Markets—Imèrina Villages—Their Elaborate Defences—Native Houses—Houses of Nobles—Hova Children—Their Dress and Games—Village Churches—And Schools—A School Examination—Aspects of Nightly Sky Epidemics in Cold Season—Vegetation CHAPTER X AT THE FOREST SANATORIUM 127 A Holiday at Ankèramadìnika—The Upper Forest Belt—The Flora of Madagascar—Troubles and Joys of a Collector—A Silken Bag—Ants and their Nests—In Trees and Burrows—Caterpillars and Winter Sleep—Butterflies’ Eggs—Snakes, Lizards and Chameleons—An Arboreal Lizard—Effects of Terror—Some Extraordinary Chameleons—The River-Hog—Sun-birds CHAPTER XI FOREST SCENES 140 Forest Scenes and Sounds—The Goat-sucker—Owls—Flowers and Berries—Palms and other Trees—The Bamboo-palm—Climbing Plants—Mosses, Lichens and Fungi—Their Beautiful Colours —Honey—The Madagascar Bee—Its Habits and its Enemies—Forest People—The Bétròsy Tribe—A Wild-Man-of-the-Woods—A Cyclone in the Forest—A Night of Peril CHAPTER XII RAMBLES IN THE UPPER FOREST 150 Forest Parts—Lost in the Woods—Native Proverbs and Dread of the Forest—Waterfalls—A Brilliant Frog—Frogs and their Croaking—A Nest-building Frog—Protective Resemblances and Mimicry—Beetles—Brilliant Bugs—Memorial Mounds—Iron Smelting—Feather Bellows—Depths of the Ravines—Forest Leeches—Ferns—Dyes, Gums and Resins—Candle-nut Tree—Medicinal Trees and Plants—Useful Timber Trees—Superstitions about the Forest—Marvellous Creatures—The Ball Insect—Millipedes and Centipedes—Scorpions CHAPTER XIII FAUNA 162 The Red-spot Spider—Various and Curious Spiders—Protective Resemblances among them—Trap-door Spiders—The Centetidæ —Malagasy Hedgehogs—The Lemurs—The Propitheques—The Red Lemur—Pensile Weaver-bird—The Bee-eater—The Coua Cuckoos —The Glory and Mystery of the Forests—A Night in the Forest CHAPTER XIV ROUND ANTSIHÀNAKA 173