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Specially chosen programmes from the BBC archive.
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For this Collection, Sir David Attenborough has chosen documentaries
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from the start of his career.
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More programmes on this theme and other BBC Four Collections
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are available on BBC iPlayer.
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Madagascar lies in the Indian Ocean here,
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and even on a globe this size it looks a tiny island,
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perhaps because it's dwarfed by this vast continent of Africa.
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But, in fact, it's an immense island,
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over 1,000 miles long, bigger than the British Isles,
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and it's a very varied island.
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Up in the north there's a landscape of extinct volcanoes,
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in the middle here there's a great plateau of high mountains,
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along the east coast a thick jungle, as thick as any you'd find in Africa,
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and down in the south there's a parched desert,
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and, to the naturalist,
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it's one of the most fascinating places in the world.
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You might think that because it's so close to Africa
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there'd be elephants and giraffe and hippopotamus
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and rhinoceros and antelope and so on,
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but, in fact, there are none of these African creatures there.
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Instead, Madagascar has a fauna entirely of its own,
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creatures that live nowhere else in the world,
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and creatures with strange names like aye-aye and sifaka
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and indris and fossa.
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Indeed, before Europeans ever went to the island,
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it had a reputation for being the home
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of really strange fabulous beasts,
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and Marco Polo, 700 years ago,
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believed that it was the home of a fabulous bird, the rukh -
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the rukh which carried off Sinbad the sailor
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and which was reputed to be able to carry off elephants in its talons
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as this one is doing,
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and the people really believed in the existence of these birds,
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and what were supposed to be their feathers
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were sent to the courts of European kings as curiosities.
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Unfortunately, those feathers turned out to be nothing more
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than dried, withered palm fronds.
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But Marco Polo had better reason
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for believing in the existence of the rukh
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than just palm fronds,
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and a very good reason for thinking that it lived in Madagascar,
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because he heard stories
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that in Madagascar were found gigantic eggs over two feet long.
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What else could have laid them but the rukh?
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Well, just over 100 years ago,
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just such an egg was discovered and sent to Europe.
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Scientists looked at it
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and gave a name to the bird that must have laid it of "aepyornis".
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Well, those eggs came from the southern, desert part of Madagascar,
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and one of the first things we did was to go down to the south
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to see if we couldn't find a rukh's egg for ourselves.
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Here, even during the wet season,
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when the rest of Madagascar is drenched with rain,
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this country is parched and dry.
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Wells are few,
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and those that exist are the focal points of all life, animal and human.
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It was by this one that we made our camp.
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People come here every day from miles around
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to draw water for themselves and for their flocks.
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One of the first travellers to see the eggs of aepyornis
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reported that he found it being used by a chief as a water bottle -
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a water bottle that held a good two gallons.
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But here, though there were oil drums, gourds,
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old wine bottles and tin buckets, there were no gigantic eggs.
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But then I hardly imagined our search
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was going to be as easy as that.
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Because there are no streams or lakes,
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people come to the well to do everything
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that involves the use of water.
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CHATTER
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The herds were kept at a distance from the well
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and were only allowed to come down
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when water had been hauled up from some 30 feet below ground
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and poured into drinking tanks.
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The goats are particularly valuable, not only for their
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milk and their flesh
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but also for their wool, for it's very fine and silky.
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The Arabic name for it is "mukhayyar",
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meaning "select, of fine quality",
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from which we get our word "mohair".
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GOATS BLEAT
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The cattle, however, are the main symbol of a person's wealth,
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and nearly every family has its own herd,
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but the pasturage is meagre and many of them were pathetically thin.
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It was in this scorching wilderness
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that egg fragments were supposed to be found,
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so I set out to look for them.
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I took a hammer with me,
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because it seemed the right sort of thing to take on a fossil hunt,
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in case I needed to tap any rocks or something.
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But I soon found that there were hardly any stones at all,
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nothing but dry sand,
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extremely hot and blindingly white in the ferocious sunshine.
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Inhospitable though it seemed to be,
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there was nonetheless evidence of animal life -
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here, the trail of a small snake.
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And here a larger and more impressive track
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of a four-legged animal.
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It seemed fairly recent, so I followed it out of curiosity.
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And here is its creator, a tortoise, most beautifully patterned,
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with bright yellow stripes on a deep brown background.
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The tribe that lives here venerates this creature.
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They believe it to be holy.
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If a man meets one as he sets out from his village in the morning,
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he makes a little prayer to it,
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places a small piece of wood on top of its shell,
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and goes on his way, delighted by the encounter,
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for it's regarded as a very happy omen,
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which will make it almost certain
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that his day will be a successful one.
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I hope the omen might apply to my day too.
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Unfortunately, not all the tribes of southern Madagascar
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regard this animal as taboo, and in past years,
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great numbers of these handsome creatures have been killed for food
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or traded up the coast of the neighbouring island of Reunion,
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where they are very highly valued as tasty meat.
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As a result, this tortoise is now sadly becoming somewhat rare.
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I was walking down the middle of the dried-up bed
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of a huge river nearly a mile wide.
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Although it still carries a stream of water during the rainy season,
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which drains down from the wetter central plateau of the island,
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it's a clear indication of the drastic changes in climate
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that have overtaken this part of Madagascar.
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It's likely that only a few hundred years ago,
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when the gigantic birds were alive,
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this was not a desert
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but a great area of swamp in which the aepyornis paddled.
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Was this an egg fragment?
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No, merely a pebble.
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And I thought at first that these, too, were merely pebbles.
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But then I realised that here I had found what I was looking for.
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These were pieces of eggshell nearly a quarter of an inch thick.
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But they were tiny.
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Perhaps there were larger pieces still buried in the sand.
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And there were.
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I had little hope of finding a whole egg,
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for, of course, most eggs are broken by the chick as it hatches,
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and only the rare addle ones remain whole,
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and even most of those must have been broken
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during the course of time.
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I just wanted to find a really large piece
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or perhaps enough of the smaller fragments to fit together
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to give me some idea of the actual size of the original eggs.
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This lad, who had appeared so silently
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while I was engrossed in searching,
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was obviously mystified as to why I should be grovelling beneath a bush
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out in the desert, miles from anywhere.
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I did my best to explain to him in French
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that I was looking for gigantic eggs.
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"Not... Not little bits," I said. "Pas petits."
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"No good. Er...really big.
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"Grandes. Grandes. Grandes pieces."
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And my French, I knew, was not very good,
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but I don't think he'd have understood even a genuine Frenchman.
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He obviously spoke only his local language.
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When he left, I was quite sure he hadn't the faintest idea
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of what I'd been trying to explain
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and was probably going back to his village
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to report that he had met a harmless lunatic.
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Although I searched for the rest of the day,
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I found no more pieces of egg.
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But when I came back in the late afternoon
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with the few precious fragments that I had found under the bush,
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I was feeling very pleased with myself.
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I reckoned that I'd been pretty sharp-eyed to discover them.
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The tortoise had been a good omen after all.
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I spent that evening and the next morning
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trying to fit the pieces together
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in the vain hope that they might all belong to one egg.
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But nothing seemed to fit onto anything else.
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Then I had a visitor.
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She didn't need to explain what she had come for.
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Her actions spoke for themselves.
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Hundreds and hundreds of the egg fragments that I had thought so rare.
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I began to explain once again that I didn't want any more small pieces,
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but I was feeling both astonished and abashed.
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Astonished, because the boy I'd met the previous day
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must have understood exactly what I was looking for.
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And abashed
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because I clearly hadn't been as sharp-eyed
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as I'd prided myself on being.
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In fact, I must have been blind
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if this woman could have gathered this great basketful in a few hours.
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However, I gave her a reward for having gone to so much trouble,
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even though the pieces that she had gathered
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were smaller than the ones I had found myself.
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I might have been blind, but at least two of my bits fitted together,
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and then I had a second visitor.
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Obviously the little boy's news had, by now, spread far and wide...
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..and she had just as many egg fragments.
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I paid her a reward, too.
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In a way, it now seemed fortunate
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that I hadn't been able to talk freely with the boy,
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for at that time I thought that these egg fragments
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were extremely rare, and if I'd been able to explain myself,
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I might well have offered a price for each piece.
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If I'd done that, by the end of the morning I would have been bankrupt!
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It was astonishing evidence
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of how abundant the aepyornis must have been,
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for all these pieces had been collected from within a few miles
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of our camp.
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And then, in the evening, my first friend reappeared
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with what seemed to be a very modest contribution
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to the several thousand pieces in the tip in front of the tent.
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I prepared to pay him the same reward of a few francs
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that I'd given to the women.
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But then I had a shock.
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These were easily the largest fragments I had seen so far.
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This really WAS a find.
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Even at first sight, it looked as though there was a possibility
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of some of them fitting together
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to give a rough idea of the dimensions of the original egg.
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I thanked him profusely and sincerely and gave him a very generous reward.
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But he left without any trace of emotion whatsoever
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on his impassive young face.
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Could THIS be the remains of one egg
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that he had found in one particular spot,
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or were they perhaps pieces that he had gathered from all over the place?
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There was only one way to find out - to try and piece them together.
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And the best method of starting
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seemed to be the same as you use when you begin on a jigsaw puzzle -
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to lay out everything face up on the ground.
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Now, would they fit together?
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These two certainly did.
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To fasten them temporarily, I used adhesive tape.
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With a jigsaw,
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you at least know that all the pieces belong to the same puzzle,
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and that they do go together somehow to form a complete picture.
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But this was different, much more exciting and tantalising,
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for I had no idea how much of the egg was present
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or whether all these pieces belonged to one egg or to several.
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With mounting excitement,
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I managed to get piece after piece to fit together.
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The egg began to appear even bigger than I had imagined.
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At the end of an hour, I had two halves.
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And to my joy, they fitted together perfectly.
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There were only three or four small holes
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and I still had several pieces left over.
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There was a place for even such a tiny fragment as this.
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The egg was well-nigh perfect.
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As I held it, I had little difficulty
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in imagining the country as it must have been
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only a few hundred years ago
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when this riverbed was filled with a brown, eddying flood,
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and when great numbers of gigantic birds over ten feet tall
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strode majestically through the swamps.
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And this is what scientists today believe
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the rukh, the aepyornis, really looked like -
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not a flying bird, as Marco Polo imagined,
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but a sort of ostrich-like creature.
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It wasn't the tallest bird that's ever existed -
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the extinct moas from New Zealand were a little taller -
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but it's almost certainly the heaviest bird that's ever existed,
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weighing something like eight or nine hundredweights.
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00:17:20,160 --> 00:17:25,760
It seems to have been alive as recently as 300 years ago,
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00:17:25,760 --> 00:17:30,720
for a Frenchman called Flacourt, who went to Madagascar in about 1650,
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heard stories from the local people of this creature.
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He even had a name for it.
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They called it "Vouron patra",
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which perhaps is an indication that there really was such a bird.
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But they said it was very rare
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and lived only in the remotest parts of the island.
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Today, it's certainly extinct.
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But never mind. I've got one of its eggs,
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the equivalent of about 140 chicken's eggs.
267
00:17:56,360 --> 00:17:59,200
But although the aepyornis is extinct,
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there are many creatures very much live and kicking in Madagascar
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which are almost extraordinary.
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Madagascar, above all things, is the land of the lemurs.
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Indeed, true lemurs live only in the island.
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But there are relatives of the lemurs occurring elsewhere
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which are more familiar to us.
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The... On Africa, there is the bushbaby,
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00:18:18,360 --> 00:18:20,800
and this creature, the potto.
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When you look at him...
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Look over here.
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I don't think you think that he's a monkey,
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although, in fact, he has a number of...
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00:18:31,600 --> 00:18:34,200
of features which are quite monkey-like.
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He has these two eyes facing forward, which is the hallmark of a monkey,
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and he has fingers on his hands and toes on his feet, which can grasp,
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which is also a monkey-like feature.
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And indeed, scientists believe that the lemurs
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and their close relatives, like the potto and the bushbaby,
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are the ancestors of the monkey group.
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00:18:58,760 --> 00:19:00,800
There is one lemur in Madagascar
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which looks, in fact, quite like this potto.
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It's called the reed lemur.
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But there are over 20 different sorts of lemurs in Madagascar,
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varying in size from a mouse to a young chimpanzee.
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And close by the place where we found the aepyornis egg
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lived one of the most beautiful of them all,
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a pure-white creature called a sifaka.
295
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It lived in a strange, weird forest
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close by the place where we'd found the egg,
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and we then went to have a look for it.
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The plants in this weird forest rose over 30 feet high.
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Though they look like cactus, they're not, in fact, close relatives,
300
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but belong to a peculiar group called "Didierea",
301
00:19:43,520 --> 00:19:47,280
which occurs nowhere else in the world but in this part of Madagascar.
302
00:19:47,280 --> 00:19:51,080
The hard, fleshy stem is barbed with savage spines,
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and, here and there, set with lines of small, bright green leaves
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the size of sixpences.
305
00:19:56,840 --> 00:20:01,640
The tops of the stems are crowned with the flowers -
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dry brown tassels rustling in the breeze.
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Inhospitable though this bush seemed to be,
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it was here that we were told the sifakas lived,
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supposedly clinging to the tops of the waving didierea,
310
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though it seemed to me that the thorns
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must make their life extremely uncomfortable.
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Certainly, it was very unpleasant merely to walk through it,
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for the thorns of the bushes and the didierea
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ripped our clothes and scratched our flesh.
315
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There, a patch of pure-white fur - a sifaka.
316
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But it was gone almost before
317
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I was able to get my glasses focused on it.
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One of the few things known about this rare animal's habits
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is that it's capable of making huge jumps of up to 40 feet.
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But so few scientists have ever observed it alive
321
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that there's some dispute as to how it achieves these gigantic leaps.
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Some authorities claim that it glides
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by means of a sort of parachute of skin
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between its forelegs and its chest.
325
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But to begin with, it hopped easily
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across the short distances between the branches.
327
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Finally, it came to the last plant in this particular clump.
328
00:21:22,520 --> 00:21:24,120
To retreat any further,
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it would have to leap across a gap of at least 20 feet
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onto the next bush.
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Now we should see whether it had to glide
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to achieve its magnificent leap.
333
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That, surely, was proof that there was no gliding.
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It was done by the sheer muscle power of its powerful hind legs.
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He was not a big animal, only about two feet long, excluding his tail,
336
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and pure white except for the naked black skin round his muzzle
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and the cap of black silky fur on top of his head.
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00:22:07,520 --> 00:22:11,760
The legs which enable the sifakas to jump so beautifully are so long
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00:22:11,760 --> 00:22:15,760
that it's almost impossible for them to walk on all fours.
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Because of this, they hardly ever descend from the trees,
341
00:22:19,200 --> 00:22:22,840
and when they do come down to the ground they have to stand upright.
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They can't walk or run in this position
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and instead jump with their feet together
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like people competing in a sack race.
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We followed him through the didierea for an hour or so
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until he came to some tamarind and locust trees
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that grew in a clump on the banks of a tiny dried-up stream.
348
00:22:55,360 --> 00:22:58,280
There, he was joined by two others.
349
00:22:58,280 --> 00:23:01,320
The group was assembling for their afternoon meal.
350
00:23:08,400 --> 00:23:11,240
Most lemurs can produce a wide variety of noise -
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00:23:11,240 --> 00:23:14,160
yaps, purrs, barks and howls,
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but the sifaka is exceptional.
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The only call it can produce is a very faint noise,
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something like a...a polite sneeze,
355
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and it only makes that when it's alarmed.
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00:23:28,800 --> 00:23:31,440
By four o'clock, there were five of them in the trees.
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Now they began to feed.
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Their food is almost exclusively vegetable,
359
00:23:49,120 --> 00:23:50,920
and they're very particular about
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00:23:50,920 --> 00:23:53,440
what sort of leaves and flowers they eat.
361
00:23:53,440 --> 00:23:55,560
As a result, it's almost impossible
362
00:23:55,560 --> 00:23:58,800
to keep them satisfactorily in captivity.
363
00:23:58,800 --> 00:24:03,120
Indeed, they've hardly ever been seen alive outside Madagascar,
364
00:24:03,120 --> 00:24:07,480
and we, therefore, made no attempt whatever to try and catch them.
365
00:24:07,480 --> 00:24:11,040
We were more than happy simply to sit and watch them
366
00:24:11,040 --> 00:24:13,560
as they feasted high above us.
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00:24:47,880 --> 00:24:53,680
By now it was late in the afternoon and the sun was low in the sky.
368
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Its setting rays gave a warm yellow tint
369
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to their beautiful snowy white fur.
370
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The sifakas adore the sun.
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Indeed, the local people believe that they worship it,
372
00:25:06,760 --> 00:25:10,760
for in the early dawn they will climb to the tops of the didierea
373
00:25:10,760 --> 00:25:15,960
and sit facing east, holding their arms raised as though in prayer,
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00:25:15,960 --> 00:25:19,680
so as to catch on their chests the first warming beams
375
00:25:19,680 --> 00:25:21,320
of the rising sun.
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00:25:23,640 --> 00:25:27,920
There are also other equally charming beliefs about them.
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00:25:27,920 --> 00:25:31,240
The people told us that they're very wise animals
378
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who understand the principles of medicine,
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for when they are wounded they will chew up certain special leaves
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00:25:38,120 --> 00:25:40,680
and plaster them over their injuries,
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00:25:40,680 --> 00:25:44,200
with the result that they're cured within a few days.
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00:25:44,200 --> 00:25:48,000
A charming story, but one, as yet, uncorroborated.
383
00:26:03,960 --> 00:26:07,160
After some time they had eaten their fill,
384
00:26:07,160 --> 00:26:10,040
and, one by one, they descended the trees
385
00:26:10,040 --> 00:26:12,720
and prepared to leave for the didierea forest
386
00:26:12,720 --> 00:26:14,480
where they will spend the night.
387
00:26:30,960 --> 00:26:34,160
I thought that this would be the last we should see of them
388
00:26:34,160 --> 00:26:36,800
for that day, but I was in for a surprise,
389
00:26:36,800 --> 00:26:39,720
for there then followed one of the most delightful hours
390
00:26:39,720 --> 00:26:42,760
that I've ever spent watching a wild animal.
391
00:26:42,760 --> 00:26:45,600
While three of these group leapt away rapidly,
392
00:26:45,600 --> 00:26:48,200
these two, a young male and a young female,
393
00:26:48,200 --> 00:26:51,120
lingered in a tree nearby and began to play.
394
00:26:59,600 --> 00:27:03,040
This was certainly not a fight, for neither was biting the other.
395
00:27:03,040 --> 00:27:05,520
It was simply a friendly wrestling match,
396
00:27:05,520 --> 00:27:08,880
interrupted every now and then when they stopped
397
00:27:08,880 --> 00:27:13,400
to look down and see precisely what we were doing 30 feet below them.
398
00:27:23,240 --> 00:27:28,240
Of course, lots of animals play, but usually only when they're young.
399
00:27:28,240 --> 00:27:31,840
Most of their games are ones designed to exercise their limbs
400
00:27:31,840 --> 00:27:36,440
and to practise the skills they will need later on in life.
401
00:27:36,440 --> 00:27:39,840
Kittens play at pouncing on their prey and at fighting.
402
00:27:39,840 --> 00:27:42,440
Puppies shake a sock in the same way
403
00:27:42,440 --> 00:27:45,280
as they'll shake a rat later on in life.
404
00:27:45,280 --> 00:27:49,000
This sort of play continues as long as their mother's looking after them.
405
00:27:49,000 --> 00:27:52,600
But usually it stops when the young animals become independent
406
00:27:52,600 --> 00:27:56,080
and are involved in the grim and all-absorbing business
407
00:27:56,080 --> 00:27:59,600
of searching for food and escaping from predators.
408
00:27:59,600 --> 00:28:04,400
There's little time for recreation in the savage world of nature.
409
00:28:04,400 --> 00:28:07,560
Adult animals in captivity also play,
410
00:28:07,560 --> 00:28:09,960
probably as an outlet for their energies
411
00:28:09,960 --> 00:28:11,720
which are not fully occupied.
412
00:28:11,720 --> 00:28:14,800
But cases of fully grown animals playing in the wild,
413
00:28:14,800 --> 00:28:18,200
not for exercise nor for training, but for sheer pleasure,
414
00:28:18,200 --> 00:28:19,640
are rare.
415
00:28:19,640 --> 00:28:23,200
But I had no doubt whatever that this is just
416
00:28:23,200 --> 00:28:26,280
what these beautiful, gentle creatures were doing,
417
00:28:26,280 --> 00:28:29,000
and they seemed to be enjoying every minute of it.
418
00:28:33,200 --> 00:28:35,720
And now watch the female as she leaves.
419
00:28:35,720 --> 00:28:37,640
She kicks out her tail behind her
420
00:28:37,640 --> 00:28:39,960
just like a fashionable Victorian lady
421
00:28:39,960 --> 00:28:42,840
kicking her train as she leaves the dance floor.
422
00:28:47,400 --> 00:28:51,480
The one thing we never really did discover about the sifakas
423
00:28:51,480 --> 00:28:55,560
was how on earth they manage to cling to these spiny didierea
424
00:28:55,560 --> 00:28:58,280
without hurting their hands or feet.
425
00:28:58,280 --> 00:29:02,040
But, apart from the lemurs, there are many other creatures in Madagascar
426
00:29:02,040 --> 00:29:05,520
which exist nowhere else in the world but in that strange island,
427
00:29:05,520 --> 00:29:07,720
including such odd things as this,
428
00:29:07,720 --> 00:29:10,320
which looks like a hedgehog and isn't -
429
00:29:10,320 --> 00:29:12,480
a creature called a tenrec.
430
00:29:12,480 --> 00:29:15,040
But I'll tell you all about that next time.
36889
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