The Aye-Aye and I

by Gerald Durrell

  The Swiss are trying to see if it is possible to replace the felled trees with young growth of the same species and to reduce the width of the rides by redesigning the zebu carts used to transport the wood. One of the great problems is, of course, that most of the tropical species are very slow-growing so, if one is planning for the future, one must think in terms of great stretches of time. Madagascar hasn’t got a lot of time left. About ninety per cent of her forest cover has already vanished.

  Tropical forests are not as strong a rampart as their massive trees make them appear. The trees live on a thin skin of humus, most of which is provided by the tree itself, in the shape of dead leaves and branches. The forest lives on its own waste products. Remove the trees, and the sun, wind and rain disperse the shallow topsoil as easily as someone blowing dust from a book. The forest is left with compacted earth or only bedrock on which nothing will grow.

  The Swiss plan will work out a sensible way of utilizing the forest by intelligent planning of the felling and replanting. If they are successful in their efforts and the scheme is put into operation there is a chance that what is left of the Malagasy forest will survive and, by wise planning, be a vital resource for years to come, instead of being ruthlessly felled for short-term gain.

  This western forest where we were based is different, of course, from the thick, lush, moist forest remnants which are found in eastern parts of the island. Here the trees are not very tall and it is more like a deciduous English woodland. The trunks and branches are predominantly charcoal-grey or silvery. The rains were late in coming but a few drizzles had produced a delicate greenish haze on the branches and close inspection showed tiny buds, like minute green spearheads, forcing their way through the bark.

  These dry forests of Madagascar are truly the home of the baobab, the dumpty trees. Massive ones lined the road, their potbellies protruding. They stuck through the lesser trees, like an army of Chianti bottles, eighty feet or more high, their bulbous bellies the circumference of a small room. Their ridiculous little twisty branches made them look like someone who has washed their hair and can’t do a thing with it. What terrible sin had they committed, I wondered, to enrage the Almighty so much that, as punishment, he tore them from the newly created earth and somersaulted them, as legend has it – their roots in the air, their branches underground – so that they were forever destined to be the upside-down tree.

  There are lovely trees in Paraguay and Argentina called palo boracho – the drunken stick – which are beautiful in their rotundity, but their tummies lack the swelling Falstaffian magnificence, the pure anti-dietary bulge of the baobab. They are, of course, stationary when you see them by daylight but one imagines that at night by the crisp, white light of the moon they uproot themselves ponderously and hie themselves to some secret grove where, under the influence of good, sweet, black rum, they gurgle gossip to each other. One of the saddest sights I have seen was in the south of drought-ridden Madagascar where, in a desperate bid to save their cattle which were dying of thirst, the people had felled giant baobabs and hacked their silvery hide off so that the zebu could get at the fibrous, moisture-filled interior. Each tree had taken maybe a hundred years to grow and was swiftly felled to become a sort of cattle trough. Even in death the baobab’s last gesture was a benign one.

  As we progressed along the dusty red road, the warm wind of our progress adding to our discomfort rather than alleviating it, suddenly we came upon a small lake among the baobabs, fringed with reeds, grasses and papyrus, its jet, shiny waters emblazoned with water lily leaves like great seals. I was delighted to see several jaçanas or – to give them their better and more fitting name – lily-trotters inhabiting this small lake. They are aristocratic birds that add elegance and beauty to any stretch of water, large or small, as long as they have something to walk on. With their long, delicate, artistic toes they made their way slowly over the jade-green lily pads, pausing now and then to peck with speed and accuracy at a beetle or a tiny mollusc who had been ill-advised to crawl out of the safety of the water. On the banks grazed Egyptian geese, stocky, phlegmatic and looking as though they were dressed in brown tweeds. Over the little lake flew squadrons of bee-eaters, decked out in vivid shades of green, their curved black beaks flashing as they made aerial attacks on the numerous dragonflies that rushed past on rustling, glittering wings. In the clusters of ridiculous branches on top of each baobab, a group of Vasa parrots sat, browny-olive green and unspectacular for parrots, but somehow comforting in their sober but delicate feathering, so unlike the garish glitter – a Woolworth’s jewellery-counter effect – of a macaw or of some of the Australian parakeets.

  On the far side of the lake, we could see colonies of weaverbirds in the almost bare trees, busy in their villages of round, basket-like nests. It always amazes me that these stumpy little birds can weave the magical nests, which decorate the trees like a crop of strange fruit, with only beak and claws. Further along the road, we disturbed two hoopoes, splendid salmon-pink and black birds with Hiawatha headdresses and long, curved, scimitar-like beaks. They flew fifty yards down the road and settled again in the red dust, spreading their crests as a conjuror fans a deck of cards.

  Soon, we left the road and drove down one of the transects through the forest. This was narrower than the main road, so one could see more closely into the forest on each side. Huge Oplurus lizards hurled themselves across the road in front of us, nine inches long, clad in shining caramel and golden-brown-coloured scales, tails bristling with sharp spikes, looking like a collection of medieval warriors. One of them was so busy digging a hole in the red earth that it did not rush away as its compatriots had done but continued stolidly with its excavation. We watched it for some time, wondering if it was digging for insects and their larvae or – since it was the breeding season – preparing a hole for its eggs. It had chosen a rather dangerous location for its nursery if it was one since, although the transect could hardly be called a teeming thoroughfare, lorries passed along it carrying tree trunks and so the chances of the nursery caving in and crushing the eggs were not remote. However, after a few more minutes’ digging, it suddenly lost interest and, without a glance at the Toyota’s wheels just two feet away it swaggered off into the undergrowth.

  We turned off into a sizeable clearing where there was a scattering of reed and bamboo huts for the forestry workers, a large branch-roofed area with hammocks for the workers and a large bamboo hut and a veranda, on which we stored our equipment, cooked, ate and read or wrote. Alongside this John and Quentin had erected their tents and our very posh new one, which consisted of a double bedroom (which could accommodate four if one needed it) and a sort of large porch where we could stack our gear. A bath house and latrine had also been constructed out of bamboo and reeds. Bath house is perhaps a rather grandiose name, conjuring up visions of gleaming taps and baths and heaps of gigantic white woolly towels like a convention of polar bears to dry on. The truth was an antediluvian tin bucket and a tin can for throwing water about. As the water had to be ferried from a stream several miles down the road, our use of this precious liquid had to be circumspect but, at least, none of us became odoriferous.

  The sun beat down on the forest, burning with the heartlessness of the Inquisition. Any breeze was shredded and strangled amongst the trees and died before ever reaching the clearing. We had settled in and had a lukewarm swill which, if anything, excited our sweat glands to even greater efforts. Now, we went to the communal veranda where the hurricane lamps glowed and the flames of the cooking fire nearby sent shadows flickering to and fro, making the whole scene tremble and dance in the drifts of smoke.

  Crouched over the fire and producing the most mouth-watering scents from his labours, was Monsieur Edmond, a government forestry agent, whose knowledge of the forest and its ways was invaluable to us, as were his abilities as a chef. He was a quiet man who seldom spoke unless spoken to, and seemed – Malagasy fashion – to drift about aimlessly, although he managed to get everything ac
complished with the minimum of fuss. He presented us with a delectable chicken stew and followed it with sunset-pink papaya which he had somehow conjured up in the fruitless forest. The full moon, like a huge silver medallion, rode in the velvety black sky and shone so brightly that you could read a book by it: I know, because I did.

  Curled up in our tents, covered only by multicoloured lambas, we listened to the night orchestra from the forest around us. The Vasa parrots – in a most unparrot-like way – sometimes spend a part of the hours of darkness singing songs to each other and that first night they were very vocal for an hour or so. Their voices were so penetrating that they drowned the other forest sounds. However, when they stopped we could tune in to the noises of the other inhabitants. There was, as always, the gentle background music of insects, popping, tweeting, buzzing, sawing, trilling, tinkling and burping. But over this sibilant tapestry of sound came clearly the voices of Microcebus, the mouse lemur, smallest of all the lemurs: two would just fill a teacup to overflowing. They are dainty little things with grey-green fur, huge golden eyes and pinkish hands, feet and ears, all rose-petal soft. They uttered penetrating squeaks and trills and when they encountered another of their kind – presumably trespassing – a great angry flood of Lilliputian invective could be heard as they scolded each other among the moonlit branches.

  We could hear the Lepilemur, which came quite close. Indeed, two of them were singing in the trees that shaded our tent, harsh staccato screams of the most unattractive sort. We were glad when they moved on. For some reason known only to zoologists, these have been christened sportive lemurs – one can only suppose because of their habit of jumping upright from tree to tree. There are six sub-species, including one with the imposing name of Milne Edwards sportive lemur, a name which can only have come out of Debrett’s. Because they feed mostly on leaves, which supply them with only low energy, it is thought that they digest their food by fermentation, then excrete the nutrients and eat their own faeces, thus assimilating ‘recycled’ nutrients. These rather cat-like creatures are nocturnal and arboreal, with thick brownish fur and large ears and eyes. They spend the daylight hours curled up in a hollow tree. When night falls they take to the trees and are sportive, making an unholy row with their macabre chants.

  The following morning, a crestfallen Q discovered that the two giant jumping rats that had been caught had both escaped in the night. It did not seem possible that such bulky animals, with their big heads, could have squeezed through the bars of our collapsible cages, but they had. On a collecting trip such as this, one learns constantly that animals – not having read the right books – will astound and amaze by always doing the most unexpected things. I have even had a vanished animal (after a disappearance of a few hours) return to camp and break back into the cage from which it had escaped. So we had a gloomy breakfast and, then, before the fly population really woke up, we went to visit the trap-line.

  The road to where the traps had been set was wide and comparatively smooth and formed a wonderful basking and hunting area for dozens of Oplurus. Some were huge, old and stocky with spikes on their tails that made them look as if they were dragging Victorian pincushions after them. It was also a good area for the hoopoes, of which we saw several, beautiful in their salmon, white and black plumage and their fan-like feathered crests making them look as if they were going on the warpath against all insect life. As we walked through the forest we disturbed a small group of trampolining sifaka, that bounded off ahead of us but stopped periodically to watch us with an interest not unmixed with alarm just as villagers in a beauty spot view the arrival of a busload of tourists.

  The homes of the giant jumping rats were large and very conspicuous and the hillocks of soil around the mouths of the holes indicated that they must be fairly extensive. John and Q explained that, at first, they set the trap and wedged it over the entrance but they found that the rats simply burrowed round or under the trap with great skill. The new method, which had proved successful, was to sink the trap a trifle and surround it with a fencing of branches hammered into the ground so that the rats were faced with an impenetrable wall of wood and were thus forced to enter the trap if they wanted to leave their nests. Strangely enough, it never seemed to occur to them that they could escape by digging another burrow further back from their front door.

  Normally visiting a trap-line is a boring routine and one’s hopes are only buoyed up by the thought that surely there will be something in the next trap. The sun was now cresting the tree tops and the forest was getting breathlessly hot. There was not the smallest noise and the trees were unruffled by any breeze – it was like walking through an oil painting. Presently we came to the first trap under a small tree and, to our amazement and delight, sitting in it and looking faintly bewildered, was a giant jumping rat. We dislocated the trap from its attendant branches and lifted it out. Our prize, though slightly alarmed, seemed on the whole to take the whole process fairly phlegmatically. With great care, we transported it back to the Toyota and, while the others went off to inspect the rest of the trap-line, I remained behind to gloat over our capture.

  It was about the size of a small cat, with a very long, thick, bare tail, large but delicate pink feet and huge pinky-grey ears like arum lilies. Its face, at first glance, looked strangely unratlike and rather square, resembling those blunt-faced horses you see in Roman sculpture. It had a mass of stiff white whiskers, through which it peered like someone looking through a lace curtain. I endeavoured to cement our friendship by giving him a small section of sugar cane and he looked at me with an expression of horror, like a world-famous gourmet who has been served a live, raw lobster by the chef.

  Like so much of the Malagasy fauna, these huge rats are unique to the island and, as far as is known, only found in this one small section of forest. They are in a genus all of their own and, having such a limited distribution, its future is, to say the least, bleak, for the felling of the forest continues apace.

  As far as I know, the only study that has been undertaken to try to find out about the private life of this strange rodent was a ten-week expedition led by James Cook in 1988. Among other things they discovered that the home of the vositse, to give it its charming Malagasy name, generally has several entrances, most of which are blocked with debris. When the vositse is at home but not receiving, the tunnel in use is blocked with freshly dug mud. In many cases, a pair or a threesome of parents and young inhabit these burrows. The animal is strictly nocturnal, sallying forth in the moonlight to forage for fruit, flowers and the tender bark of baby trees. According to Cook, when it leaves its burrow it does so with a mighty bound, propelled by its powerful hind legs. Then, it sits down and has a thorough cleaning session. This is very puzzling behaviour since, if bounding out of its nest is meant to confuse a predator patiently waiting outside, why sit down near the nest and commence an elaborate toilet which requires concentration? However, in my experience, as most of the mammal fauna of Madagascar are more than slightly dim-witted, there is probably no explanation.

  The others returned to report that all the other traps were depressingly empty, so we decided to take our one vositse back to camp where a large travelling cage had been prepared for him, so lashed about with wire that it looked as impregnable as the Bastille. As we were driving back, assuring each other that one vositse was better than none at all, Q suddenly uttered a yelping, yodelling cry like the mating call of a brontosaurus and rammed on all the brakes, making us thrash to and fro like a Punch and Judy show caught in a hurricane. I was convinced that he must have been bitten by one of the more malevolent insect inhabitants of the forest, but I was wrong.

  ‘I think,’ he said, in agonised tones like one who has just discovered that he has lighted the kitchen fire with an original Shakespeare manuscript. ‘I think I have run over a kapidolo.’

  We all recoiled, bristling with horror at this revelation.

  ‘How could you?’ said Lee. ‘Poor little thing.’

  ‘The idea is t
o catch them, not kill them,’ I pointed out, acidly.

  ‘Well, I couldn’t help it,’ said Q, aggrievedly, ‘they have no business walking about on the road.’

  ‘And it wasn’t even using a pedestrian crossing,’ said John, sotto voce.

  ‘You’d better get out and have a look,’ I suggested.

  He left the Toyota and made his way back down the road as if he was walking in a state funeral. Then he gave a shout of joy and came hurriedly back to us, carrying an unscathed kapidolo in his hands. When young, these are probably the most beautiful of tortoises though, unfortunately, as they get older their carapaces compress and become oval and the coloration can become a drab grey. In contrast, the young are a riot of colour, their shells marked with chestnut, black and bright yellow. On the head, between the bright eyes and the upper lip, is a creamy yellow marking, which makes the animal look as though it is wearing a long moustache of the sort that used to be favoured by our great-grandparents. This one must have been a couple of years old and was still in his radiant, circular, infant shell.

  The kapidolo, or flat-tailed tortoise, is a strange and lovely little creature about which little is known. It inhabits only a small area in the dry western forest, which has two seasons: the rainy, warm one with the hottest temperatures creeping up to 45°C, which lasts three to five months; and the cool, dry season lasting seven to eight months. They seem to be most active during and after downpours of rain whereas in the dry periods (and at night) they retreat to the heavy leaf litter on the forest floor. They are thought to lay a single, rather large egg, but no one knows how many clutches they produce in a year. It is thought (though no one is sure) that the kapidolo aestivates below ground during the prolonged dry period and probably digs itself out in order to breed in the rainy season. As with so many creatures, not only in Madagascar but all over the world, we know very little about their private lives and are killing them off before we can find out. The forest we were in is shrinking because the people cut it for firewood and to open pasture lands. When the forest goes, the people will suffer and the kapidolo and vositse will disappear, having no ability to find alternative accommodation.