Would you like to inspect the original subtitles? These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated:
1
00:00:03,920 --> 00:00:07,560
Specially chosen programmes from the BBC archive.
2
00:00:07,560 --> 00:00:10,760
For this Collection, Sir David Attenborough has chosen documentaries
3
00:00:10,760 --> 00:00:12,960
from the start of his career.
4
00:00:12,960 --> 00:00:16,200
More programmes on this theme and other BBC Four Collections
5
00:00:16,200 --> 00:00:18,200
are available on BBC iPlayer.
6
00:00:20,040 --> 00:00:22,760
MALAGASY VALIHA MUSIC
7
00:00:39,360 --> 00:00:43,360
Madagascar, for the naturalist, is, above all, the land of the lemur -
8
00:00:43,360 --> 00:00:48,160
those strange ancestors and relations of the monkeys.
9
00:00:48,160 --> 00:00:50,640
They come in many different sorts.
10
00:00:50,640 --> 00:00:54,680
The smallest of them are these - the mouse lemurs.
11
00:00:56,360 --> 00:01:02,640
They live in holes in trees, and we caught quite a number of them.
12
00:01:02,640 --> 00:01:07,400
And as you may judge from their big, staring eyes,
13
00:01:07,400 --> 00:01:09,840
they're mainly nocturnal animals
14
00:01:09,840 --> 00:01:13,000
and so they're not very lively with these lights on them.
15
00:01:15,800 --> 00:01:19,440
But they're very beautiful creatures and really quite like
16
00:01:19,440 --> 00:01:23,320
their distant relatives, the bushbabies of Africa.
17
00:01:26,600 --> 00:01:29,840
And indeed, they're not only the smallest of the lemurs,
18
00:01:29,840 --> 00:01:33,680
they're the smallest of the whole of the group of primates -
19
00:01:33,680 --> 00:01:38,240
the group which contains not only the lemurs, but apes and monkeys,
20
00:01:38,240 --> 00:01:40,040
and, indeed, man himself.
21
00:01:41,520 --> 00:01:45,120
They look very cuddly and they have very soft fur,
22
00:01:45,120 --> 00:01:49,720
but, in fact, they're quite fierce, as I know, when we caught them.
23
00:01:49,720 --> 00:01:53,920
Once they bite you, they are very reluctant to let go.
24
00:01:53,920 --> 00:01:56,120
And they've got very sharp little teeth.
25
00:01:56,120 --> 00:01:57,920
So I'm not going to touch them.
26
00:01:57,920 --> 00:02:02,200
Being nocturnal animals, they use their ears
27
00:02:02,200 --> 00:02:06,600
to collect every tiny sound that's going on around them.
28
00:02:06,600 --> 00:02:10,720
And they can adjust their ears just like the bushbabies can.
29
00:02:12,240 --> 00:02:13,920
And their tails are very fat.
30
00:02:13,920 --> 00:02:16,440
They store fat for hibernation there.
31
00:02:18,040 --> 00:02:22,040
I'm happy to say that two of the females are looking very fat,
32
00:02:22,040 --> 00:02:24,920
and we are hoping that they may produce babies.
33
00:02:24,920 --> 00:02:28,040
If they do, well, it looks as though we have a chance
34
00:02:28,040 --> 00:02:31,520
of establishing little colonies of mouse lemurs in London,
35
00:02:31,520 --> 00:02:33,520
which, as far as I know, will be the first
36
00:02:33,520 --> 00:02:35,880
anywhere in the world outside Madagascar.
37
00:02:35,880 --> 00:02:38,720
These, then, are the smallest of the lemurs.
38
00:02:38,720 --> 00:02:41,960
But the biggest of the lemurs is a very different creature.
39
00:02:41,960 --> 00:02:45,000
It's a creature the size of a young chimpanzee,
40
00:02:45,000 --> 00:02:47,640
black and white in fur.
41
00:02:47,640 --> 00:02:49,400
And a most impressive thing -
42
00:02:49,400 --> 00:02:52,440
it doesn't even have a tail, unlike the rest of the lemurs.
43
00:02:52,440 --> 00:02:54,600
And it's the only one not to have a tail,
44
00:02:54,600 --> 00:02:57,920
at least, not a tail to speak of - it's got a small tail.
45
00:02:57,920 --> 00:03:01,280
Many people consider that this strange creature
46
00:03:01,280 --> 00:03:03,960
is the origin of the legend of a dog-headed man.
47
00:03:05,240 --> 00:03:08,080
Marco Polo wrote about the dog-headed man,
48
00:03:08,080 --> 00:03:11,480
and this is an illustration from a natural history book
49
00:03:11,480 --> 00:03:13,400
published some 300 years ago.
50
00:03:14,680 --> 00:03:18,920
And really it's not a bad likeness of the big lemur.
51
00:03:18,920 --> 00:03:21,840
Its legs are proportioned like a human being,
52
00:03:21,840 --> 00:03:23,680
which is like the big lemur.
53
00:03:23,680 --> 00:03:26,680
Like the big lemur, it's got a furry coat
54
00:03:26,680 --> 00:03:29,560
and it's also got these tremendous long hands,
55
00:03:29,560 --> 00:03:32,480
which is very characteristic of the big lemur,
56
00:03:32,480 --> 00:03:35,440
and it's got a dog's head.
57
00:03:35,440 --> 00:03:38,120
Perhaps the big lemur has a bit more snub nose,
58
00:03:38,120 --> 00:03:40,440
but it's quite like this big lemur.
59
00:03:40,440 --> 00:03:44,360
The first man to see this big lemur was a Frenchman called Flacourt
60
00:03:44,360 --> 00:03:48,000
who was travelling in Madagascar in the middle of the 17th century.
61
00:03:48,000 --> 00:03:50,320
And he was going through one of the forests
62
00:03:50,320 --> 00:03:54,560
and suddenly his guide pointed up into the trees and said, "Indris!"
63
00:03:54,560 --> 00:03:57,240
And Flacourt saw a creature as I have described.
64
00:03:57,240 --> 00:04:00,760
So he immediately wrote in his notebook, "the big lemur, indris".
65
00:04:00,760 --> 00:04:04,240
But unfortunately, "indris" wasn't the name of the lemur at all.
66
00:04:04,240 --> 00:04:07,480
It was simply a Madagascan word which means, "Look at that!".
67
00:04:07,480 --> 00:04:10,800
The true name...the Madagascan name of the big lemur
68
00:04:10,800 --> 00:04:12,640
is, in fact, "babakoto".
69
00:04:12,640 --> 00:04:15,000
But anyway, the name "indris" has stuck,
70
00:04:15,000 --> 00:04:17,400
and as far as the world of science is concerned,
71
00:04:17,400 --> 00:04:19,320
the big lemur is called the indris.
72
00:04:19,320 --> 00:04:21,600
Well, obviously we wanted to film this,
73
00:04:21,600 --> 00:04:23,520
and before we went to Madagascar,
74
00:04:23,520 --> 00:04:26,120
I visited a very distinguished British naturalist
75
00:04:26,120 --> 00:04:30,080
who'd spent seven years there and asked him about the indris.
76
00:04:30,080 --> 00:04:31,680
He told me that as far as he knew
77
00:04:31,680 --> 00:04:35,120
it had never been photographed or filmed alive.
78
00:04:35,120 --> 00:04:38,200
It has never been kept in captivity for any length of time,
79
00:04:38,200 --> 00:04:42,680
because it has a very specialised diet of leaves and flower petals,
80
00:04:42,680 --> 00:04:47,160
and, what is more, it's extremely difficult to find, so he said.
81
00:04:47,160 --> 00:04:49,080
He said that in his seven years there,
82
00:04:49,080 --> 00:04:51,840
he had only once managed to get a fleeting glimpse of it,
83
00:04:51,840 --> 00:04:54,960
high up in the trees. Well, this obviously was a challenge,
84
00:04:54,960 --> 00:04:57,120
and we decided we would have a try.
85
00:04:57,120 --> 00:05:00,240
So we went down to the thick tropical rainforests
86
00:05:00,240 --> 00:05:03,520
on the eastern coast of Madagascar to look for the indris.
87
00:05:13,840 --> 00:05:16,440
The forest is pierced by a number of tracks
88
00:05:16,440 --> 00:05:19,080
which have been cut through it so that loggers
89
00:05:19,080 --> 00:05:21,880
can begin working the rich and valuable timber,
90
00:05:21,880 --> 00:05:24,360
and it was along one of these that we turned.
91
00:05:30,760 --> 00:05:34,720
The going wasn't easy, for the track had been cut several months before,
92
00:05:34,720 --> 00:05:36,600
but no work had gone on since,
93
00:05:36,600 --> 00:05:39,560
so it was already beginning to get overgrown.
94
00:05:39,560 --> 00:05:43,120
In fact, our car was the first to travel down it for some time.
95
00:05:52,480 --> 00:05:58,000
Well, we had arrived. But now we were here, I wasn't sure what to do next.
96
00:05:58,000 --> 00:06:01,720
Certainly the indris was supposed to live somewhere in these forests,
97
00:06:01,720 --> 00:06:03,440
but where, exactly?
98
00:06:03,440 --> 00:06:05,440
And how do you start to find them?
99
00:06:05,440 --> 00:06:07,200
There seemed nothing else to do
100
00:06:07,200 --> 00:06:09,360
except to get out and simply start looking.
101
00:06:09,360 --> 00:06:13,040
And as far as I could tell, this place was as good as any other.
102
00:06:22,040 --> 00:06:24,160
This was virgin forest,
103
00:06:24,160 --> 00:06:27,200
almost the only patch left in the whole of Madagascar.
104
00:06:27,200 --> 00:06:29,800
And it was easily the thickest that we'd come across
105
00:06:29,800 --> 00:06:32,120
in the whole of our time in the island.
106
00:06:32,120 --> 00:06:36,080
Except for the loggers' tracks, there were no paths whatever through it.
107
00:06:36,080 --> 00:06:39,400
It was very hot and moist and filled with sound.
108
00:06:40,920 --> 00:06:42,640
BIRDSONG
109
00:06:51,360 --> 00:06:53,440
The indris, if they were here,
110
00:06:53,440 --> 00:06:56,680
were presumably somewhere high up in the trees.
111
00:06:56,680 --> 00:06:59,600
But it's not a good thing to walk through a forest like this
112
00:06:59,600 --> 00:07:02,080
without watching carefully where you put your feet.
113
00:07:02,080 --> 00:07:04,240
And anyway, there are lots of interesting things
114
00:07:04,240 --> 00:07:07,080
to be discovered in thick vegetation like this.
115
00:07:08,680 --> 00:07:10,120
Under this bush,
116
00:07:10,120 --> 00:07:12,680
I found an enormous number
117
00:07:12,680 --> 00:07:16,280
of beautiful, shiny, olive-green objects.
118
00:07:44,480 --> 00:07:47,440
This is a pill millipede.
119
00:07:47,440 --> 00:07:50,920
Although it looks like a giant version of the little woodlouse
120
00:07:50,920 --> 00:07:53,960
we find under stones in our gardens at home,
121
00:07:53,960 --> 00:07:56,480
it's not, in fact, a close relative.
122
00:07:56,480 --> 00:08:00,160
Of course, it's not poisonous, and indeed it hasn't got
123
00:08:00,160 --> 00:08:04,840
sufficiently powerful mouth parts to bite you, even if it wanted to.
124
00:08:04,840 --> 00:08:06,880
It feeds on rotting vegetation,
125
00:08:06,880 --> 00:08:09,440
but why there should be several hundred of them
126
00:08:09,440 --> 00:08:13,440
gathered together in this one spot, I had no idea.
127
00:08:30,600 --> 00:08:33,920
As a piece of functional design, it's almost perfect -
128
00:08:33,920 --> 00:08:37,880
rolling up into a ball, with no cracks whatever in its armour.
129
00:08:43,600 --> 00:08:47,640
Interesting though they were, they were not what I was looking for.
130
00:08:47,640 --> 00:08:50,480
My mind was set on the indris.
131
00:09:05,000 --> 00:09:09,120
We searched day after day, but still found no sign of them.
132
00:09:09,120 --> 00:09:13,760
However, the forest was full of a variety of birds, many of them
133
00:09:13,760 --> 00:09:17,440
especially interesting because they are found only in Madagascar.
134
00:09:17,440 --> 00:09:20,920
A recording of some of their songs would be worthwhile having.
135
00:09:20,920 --> 00:09:22,840
And I could at least do that.
136
00:09:22,840 --> 00:09:25,040
So one morning I set out with a tape recorder.
137
00:09:26,600 --> 00:09:28,560
BIRDSONG
138
00:09:34,440 --> 00:09:36,960
I also used a parabolic reflector,
139
00:09:36,960 --> 00:09:39,320
which acts as a kind of searchlight,
140
00:09:39,320 --> 00:09:43,160
concentrating the microphone sensitivity into a narrow beam
141
00:09:43,160 --> 00:09:46,800
so that you can record a bird singing a considerable distance away.
142
00:09:54,040 --> 00:09:58,400
The first bird to perform for us was a little paradise flycatcher
143
00:09:58,400 --> 00:10:02,080
dancing its courtship display in the trees not far away.
144
00:10:02,080 --> 00:10:03,760
BIRD SINGS
145
00:10:22,320 --> 00:10:24,600
HOWLING
146
00:10:24,600 --> 00:10:27,760
But this noise was no bird call.
147
00:10:27,760 --> 00:10:30,760
I had never heard anything like it before.
148
00:10:30,760 --> 00:10:32,880
It must be the voice of the indris.
149
00:10:34,160 --> 00:10:37,280
The song was so loud that it seemed impossible
150
00:10:37,280 --> 00:10:40,640
that the animals could be more than 20 or 30 yards away.
151
00:10:40,640 --> 00:10:42,480
But where were they?
152
00:10:45,720 --> 00:10:47,960
HOWLING
153
00:10:59,400 --> 00:11:01,880
Infuriatingly, the bush was so thick
154
00:11:01,880 --> 00:11:04,680
that I could see no sign of them whatever.
155
00:11:06,160 --> 00:11:09,920
It was maddening to have been so close to this rare animal
156
00:11:09,920 --> 00:11:12,200
and yet not have been able to see it.
157
00:11:12,200 --> 00:11:16,480
But at least we now had proof that the indris were here - somewhere.
158
00:11:16,480 --> 00:11:18,400
If only we had enough patience,
159
00:11:18,400 --> 00:11:21,880
surely we should in the end catch sight of them.
160
00:11:21,880 --> 00:11:25,520
We spent most of the following days walking as quietly as we could
161
00:11:25,520 --> 00:11:29,320
through the forest, hoping that if we moved slowly and silently
162
00:11:29,320 --> 00:11:33,680
we would come across an indris sitting quietly in the trees above,
163
00:11:33,680 --> 00:11:37,560
munching leaves, perhaps in a more open part of the forest
164
00:11:37,560 --> 00:11:40,160
where we might get a clear enough view of them
165
00:11:40,160 --> 00:11:41,920
to be able to get film shots.
166
00:11:46,080 --> 00:11:48,160
We searched day after day,
167
00:11:48,160 --> 00:11:51,880
but although we sometimes heard their weird singing in the distance,
168
00:11:51,880 --> 00:11:55,680
we never caught even the briefest glimpse of the animals themselves.
169
00:11:55,680 --> 00:11:58,120
I began to despair of ever seeing them.
170
00:11:58,120 --> 00:12:01,880
Then I decided it was foolish to concentrate entirely on the indris,
171
00:12:01,880 --> 00:12:05,320
for there were, after all, many other fascinating creatures
172
00:12:05,320 --> 00:12:08,800
which were supposed to occur in this forest somewhere.
173
00:12:08,800 --> 00:12:12,680
There was one I particularly wanted to see - the frilled gecko,
174
00:12:12,680 --> 00:12:15,240
a type of lizard occurring only in Madagascar,
175
00:12:15,240 --> 00:12:18,200
which is one of the most remarkable examples of camouflage
176
00:12:18,200 --> 00:12:20,360
to be found in the animal world.
177
00:12:20,360 --> 00:12:23,320
It clings to the trunks of trees, and is said to be
178
00:12:23,320 --> 00:12:27,120
so well disguised that it's almost impossible to see it.
179
00:12:27,120 --> 00:12:30,160
I came to the conclusion that my only chance of finding one
180
00:12:30,160 --> 00:12:31,920
would be to thump the tree trunk
181
00:12:31,920 --> 00:12:35,320
in the hope of making it move and so drawing attention to itself.
182
00:13:13,760 --> 00:13:17,880
But the geckos seemed to be just as elusive as the indris.
183
00:13:27,120 --> 00:13:32,440
There might well be one in the picture now, but if there is,
184
00:13:32,440 --> 00:13:34,400
I certainly didn't see it.
185
00:13:40,000 --> 00:13:43,080
Then we did have a bit of luck.
186
00:13:54,200 --> 00:13:55,800
There's one here...
187
00:13:55,800 --> 00:13:59,800
hanging upside-down in profile on the right.
188
00:14:03,600 --> 00:14:07,880
Its feet, with their adhesive pads on the end of the toes,
189
00:14:07,880 --> 00:14:09,520
were flattened so much
190
00:14:09,520 --> 00:14:12,080
that they seemed to melt into the bark
191
00:14:12,080 --> 00:14:15,640
and the whole animal pressed itself so closely to the tree
192
00:14:15,640 --> 00:14:18,200
that it was almost indistinguishable from it.
193
00:14:27,240 --> 00:14:31,440
Even the outline of its eye was broken up with a fringe.
194
00:14:43,080 --> 00:14:47,080
This little creature terrifies most Madagascans.
195
00:14:47,080 --> 00:14:49,480
They believe it to be extremely dangerous,
196
00:14:49,480 --> 00:14:52,720
for they say it has such a powerful evil spirit
197
00:14:52,720 --> 00:14:55,440
that if you merely brush up against one accidentally
198
00:14:55,440 --> 00:14:57,880
the only way you can rid yourself of its taint
199
00:14:57,880 --> 00:15:01,040
and prevent the dreadful consequences of touching it
200
00:15:01,040 --> 00:15:05,000
is to cut the part of your body which it has contaminated
201
00:15:05,000 --> 00:15:07,640
and so wash away the evil with blood.
202
00:15:07,640 --> 00:15:11,040
I suppose the very perfection of its camouflage, making it
203
00:15:11,040 --> 00:15:15,560
well-nigh invisible, is partly responsible for its eerie reputation.
204
00:15:15,560 --> 00:15:19,160
It achieves this invisibility by using the same device
205
00:15:19,160 --> 00:15:22,520
as was used during the war to camouflage gun sights and bomb dumps.
206
00:15:22,520 --> 00:15:25,400
You can paint a building the colour of its surroundings,
207
00:15:25,400 --> 00:15:30,280
but it will still be obvious, for it casts a telltale shadow.
208
00:15:30,280 --> 00:15:33,640
The way to obliterate the shadow is to put a drape round the sides,
209
00:15:33,640 --> 00:15:36,320
and this is just what the gecko does.
210
00:15:36,320 --> 00:15:40,360
Not only does it have an irregular frill round its chin,
211
00:15:40,360 --> 00:15:43,760
but there are flaps of skin down its flanks, and even its tail
212
00:15:43,760 --> 00:15:48,080
has fleshy growths on the side of it which prevent it casting any shadows.
213
00:15:51,720 --> 00:15:53,640
Weird? Perhaps.
214
00:15:53,640 --> 00:15:57,080
Rare, certainly, for it lives nowhere else in the world,
215
00:15:57,080 --> 00:15:59,880
and, equally certainly, a fascinating creature.
216
00:16:02,200 --> 00:16:06,280
But, of course, the indris remained our main objective.
217
00:16:06,280 --> 00:16:09,520
And I racked my brains for some better way of finding them
218
00:16:09,520 --> 00:16:13,440
than simply wandering aimlessly through the same parts of the bush
219
00:16:13,440 --> 00:16:15,120
day after day.
220
00:16:15,120 --> 00:16:18,720
Perhaps we should pack up and drive off to some other area,
221
00:16:18,720 --> 00:16:20,640
and start all over again.
222
00:16:20,640 --> 00:16:22,120
But that seemed foolish.
223
00:16:22,120 --> 00:16:25,920
For at least we had heard them, so we knew they were here, somewhere.
224
00:16:30,400 --> 00:16:32,880
I was fairly sure that the trouble was simply
225
00:16:32,880 --> 00:16:35,160
that our eyes were not sharp enough.
226
00:16:35,160 --> 00:16:38,280
The animals were there, but we couldn't see them.
227
00:16:38,280 --> 00:16:42,720
Then I had an idea. We had got its recorded voice.
228
00:16:42,720 --> 00:16:46,040
Perhaps if we played the recording in various parts of the forest,
229
00:16:46,040 --> 00:16:49,400
we might persuade the indris, sitting concealed in the trees,
230
00:16:49,400 --> 00:16:53,640
to sing in answer to the recording, and so reveal its presence.
231
00:16:53,640 --> 00:16:56,040
I wasn't very convinced that it would work,
232
00:16:56,040 --> 00:16:59,960
but we had tried everything else and failed, so we might as well try this.
233
00:17:22,080 --> 00:17:25,120
HOWLING ON RECORDING
234
00:17:48,120 --> 00:17:51,280
INDRIS CALLS
235
00:17:51,280 --> 00:17:54,120
This was different, yet it must be the voice of the indris.
236
00:17:54,120 --> 00:17:55,720
It could be nothing else.
237
00:17:55,720 --> 00:17:59,080
They were replying to their recorded song with alarm calls.
238
00:17:59,080 --> 00:18:01,040
But where were they?
239
00:18:07,000 --> 00:18:08,760
INDRIS CALLS
240
00:18:17,120 --> 00:18:18,680
There!
241
00:18:18,680 --> 00:18:21,080
40 yards away - farther than I'd guessed
242
00:18:21,080 --> 00:18:24,680
judging from the loudness of their calls, and 30 feet up in the tree.
243
00:18:30,360 --> 00:18:33,320
How close would they let me approach?
244
00:18:54,160 --> 00:18:56,600
INDRIS CALLS
245
00:19:25,720 --> 00:19:28,920
They were big creatures, even larger than I had imagined -
246
00:19:28,920 --> 00:19:30,840
at least three feet tall.
247
00:19:30,840 --> 00:19:34,720
And the tinny voice of the recorder seemed to hold them fascinated.
248
00:19:41,040 --> 00:19:44,400
HOWLING ON RECORDING
249
00:19:48,440 --> 00:19:51,280
INDRIS CALLS
250
00:20:05,840 --> 00:20:08,800
RECORDING CONTINUES TO PLAY
251
00:20:20,200 --> 00:20:22,440
INDRIS CALLS
252
00:20:31,320 --> 00:20:33,360
INDRIS CALLS
253
00:20:41,920 --> 00:20:45,040
INDRIS CALLS
254
00:20:52,720 --> 00:20:55,760
The proportions of their body, with their very long legs,
255
00:20:55,760 --> 00:20:57,080
were strangely human.
256
00:20:57,080 --> 00:21:01,840
And I remembered once again Marco Polo's dog-headed men.
257
00:21:03,720 --> 00:21:06,080
INDRIS CALLS
258
00:21:08,280 --> 00:21:12,080
But then either the strange quality of their recorded singing
259
00:21:12,080 --> 00:21:15,240
or else my presence became too much for them
260
00:21:15,240 --> 00:21:17,680
and they were off, jumping magnificently
261
00:21:17,680 --> 00:21:21,600
with their bodies upright, in a manner quite unlike that of monkeys.
262
00:21:36,760 --> 00:21:39,960
It was impossible to chase them through the forest.
263
00:21:39,960 --> 00:21:42,120
They could go much faster than we could.
264
00:21:42,120 --> 00:21:44,280
But it would have been valueless anyway
265
00:21:44,280 --> 00:21:46,080
because they were thoroughly alarmed
266
00:21:46,080 --> 00:21:50,400
and not likely to allow us to creep up and film them at close quarters.
267
00:21:50,400 --> 00:21:53,560
But the next day, I went back to exactly the same place,
268
00:21:53,560 --> 00:21:55,800
at the same time, without a recorder,
269
00:21:55,800 --> 00:21:57,840
and as quietly as possible,
270
00:21:57,840 --> 00:21:59,880
in the hope of finding them undisturbed.
271
00:22:06,840 --> 00:22:09,280
To my joy, they were there again.
272
00:22:25,120 --> 00:22:29,720
In the weeks that followed, we got to know this family very well indeed.
273
00:22:29,720 --> 00:22:31,320
There were four of them.
274
00:22:31,320 --> 00:22:35,000
The most skittish and lively, and therefore the easiest to find,
275
00:22:35,000 --> 00:22:37,640
were these two - a young pair.
276
00:22:54,000 --> 00:22:58,040
There was also an old male, the father of the family,
277
00:22:58,040 --> 00:23:02,160
whose favourite position was to sit on a branch chewing leaves,
278
00:23:02,160 --> 00:23:07,360
with one of his enormous legs dangling down like a giant calliper.
279
00:23:11,000 --> 00:23:14,040
His mate, the old female, was very shy,
280
00:23:14,040 --> 00:23:17,880
and we only got short glimpses of her before she leapt away.
281
00:23:19,200 --> 00:23:21,880
The young couple were very affectionate
282
00:23:21,880 --> 00:23:24,200
and spent hours and hours every day
283
00:23:24,200 --> 00:23:26,960
sitting on a bough caressing one another.
284
00:23:30,560 --> 00:23:33,120
They seemed to be nervous and excitable,
285
00:23:33,120 --> 00:23:35,560
and were obviously disturbed not only by us,
286
00:23:35,560 --> 00:23:37,560
if we made an incautious movement,
287
00:23:37,560 --> 00:23:41,240
but also, surprisingly, by other inhabitants of the forest,
288
00:23:41,240 --> 00:23:44,640
particularly if they had loud, gruff calls -
289
00:23:44,640 --> 00:23:46,880
like this handsome bird, a coua.
290
00:23:48,520 --> 00:23:49,840
COUA CALLS
291
00:23:58,560 --> 00:23:59,600
COUA CALLS
292
00:24:01,080 --> 00:24:05,080
They really seemed quite upset by the bird coming so close to them.
293
00:24:26,760 --> 00:24:30,960
Of course, it took a great deal to put the old man off HIS food.
294
00:24:41,720 --> 00:24:45,640
But even HE stopped to look at the bird when it got too close.
295
00:24:45,640 --> 00:24:50,280
COUA CALLS
296
00:24:50,280 --> 00:24:53,920
The young ones, however, had been quite upset,
297
00:24:53,920 --> 00:24:58,160
and didn't seem to be able to settle down again to their endearments.
298
00:25:49,440 --> 00:25:53,560
We discovered that our indris family were very much creatures of habit.
299
00:25:53,560 --> 00:25:57,040
They slept in the same tree every night, and every morning
300
00:25:57,040 --> 00:25:59,640
they set off along the same route through the forest.
301
00:25:59,640 --> 00:26:03,160
They sang regularly at the same time, six o'clock
302
00:26:03,160 --> 00:26:06,600
and 11 o'clock in the morning, and four o'clock in the afternoon.
303
00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:09,400
And they would visit the same trees for feeding.
304
00:26:09,400 --> 00:26:12,560
As a result, by the time we had watched them for a week or so,
305
00:26:12,560 --> 00:26:15,320
we could predict almost exactly where they would be
306
00:26:15,320 --> 00:26:17,160
at any particular time of the day.
307
00:26:18,360 --> 00:26:20,360
But we seldom saw the old female.
308
00:26:20,360 --> 00:26:23,440
She sat in the thickest part of the trees.
309
00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:25,640
But from the few glimpses I had had of her,
310
00:26:25,640 --> 00:26:27,960
I suspected that she was nursing a baby.
311
00:26:27,960 --> 00:26:31,840
Before we left, I wanted, above all, to observe her closely,
312
00:26:31,840 --> 00:26:34,600
and because we knew their daily routine so precisely,
313
00:26:34,600 --> 00:26:37,880
it was possible for us to conceal ourselves in one position
314
00:26:37,880 --> 00:26:39,480
and then wait for her to arrive.
315
00:26:40,800 --> 00:26:42,400
There she is.
316
00:26:53,480 --> 00:26:56,480
And this is the shot which showed us
317
00:26:56,480 --> 00:27:00,200
that she did indeed have a young fifth member of the family
318
00:27:00,200 --> 00:27:02,160
clinging to her back.
319
00:27:21,800 --> 00:27:25,640
She displayed touching affection towards her baby,
320
00:27:25,640 --> 00:27:27,720
licking it and caressing it.
321
00:27:50,200 --> 00:27:51,960
Her mate, the old male,
322
00:27:51,960 --> 00:27:57,440
often clambered up to sit by her side as she rested in the thick leaves.
323
00:28:16,760 --> 00:28:19,160
Of all the creatures we saw in Madagascar,
324
00:28:19,160 --> 00:28:24,440
this, the largest of the lemurs, was the rarest, the most interesting,
325
00:28:24,440 --> 00:28:28,440
the least-known scientifically and the most enchanting.
326
00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:31,400
These forests are their last home in the world,
327
00:28:31,400 --> 00:28:34,240
and their numbers now must be very restricted.
328
00:28:34,240 --> 00:28:37,720
They do no harm to anyone or anything.
329
00:28:37,720 --> 00:28:42,000
They feed on the young shoots of trees and on flower petals.
330
00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:46,880
They have no natural enemies except, possibly, man.
331
00:28:46,880 --> 00:28:49,920
Fortunately, most of the people living in the forest
332
00:28:49,920 --> 00:28:52,880
regard the indris with an awe amounting to reverence.
333
00:28:52,880 --> 00:28:55,160
For these beautiful creatures, they say,
334
00:28:55,160 --> 00:28:57,480
are a gentle branch of the human race
335
00:28:57,480 --> 00:29:02,200
who have taken refuge in the trees to live inoffensively in peace.
336
00:29:03,560 --> 00:29:06,720
MALAGASY VALIHA MUSIC
28824
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get subtitles in any language from opensubtitles.com, and translate them here.