Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 1 1883.djvu/22

 14 obtains his food. So let that teach you that the old fellow is not dead by any means, but is still looking after business.

This reference to the crocodile is but one out of scores of passages noticing the habits of animals in these pieces, and which reveal, as already remarked, a most accurate knowledge of their habits. In one of them the eels in the lake Itàsy are represented as in council, expressing their disappointment that a stone breakwater, made to prevent a too great rush of water out of the lake, has not proved a place for their greater enjoyment, but where they may more easily be caught. In another piece the different cries and habits of various birds are compared, and their unfitness for carrying a message; all of them but one, the vòrondréo (Leptosoma discolor), which has a loud distinct cry; while as to the others, the fìtatra (a stonechat, Pratincola sybilla) would be always looking for food, the sòy̆ (a species of Nectarinia) would be too melancholy, and the fòdy (the cardinal-bird, Foudia Madagascariensis), which goes in flocks, would always be flying off with its companions.

This observation of bird life is also illustrated in a short piece which enforces the familiar English household maxim that

Everything has its Place.

The whitebird (a species of egret, which feeds on the flies and parasites of cattle) does not leave the oxen, the sandpiper does not forsake the ford, the hawk does not depart from the tree, the valley is the dwelling of the mosquito, the mountain is the home of the mist, the water holes are the lair of the crocodile. And the sovereign is the depositary (lit. “resting-place”) of the law, and the people the depository of good sense.

Equally numerous are the allusions to the various trees and plants and their qualities, and the way in which they illustrate human weaknesses and follies.

Love of children is a marked feature in these native sayings. They are called “the fat (that is, the best) of one’s life” (ménaky ny aina), and are said to be “loved like one’s self,” &c. Equally distinct is the love of home and of one’s native place: “Yonder road,” says one piece, “is dreary and difficult, twisting about here and there, but for all that it is the way leading to the door of the house of father and mother.”

Still more fully and pathetically is this warm family affection