"The Aye-Aye and I" [.]

[fiefoe]

Gerald Durrell is very good at teasing out the lyrical and the screwball.

• 'Here' it seemed to say to itself, 'must lurk a beetle larva of royal proportions and of the utmost succulence.' It fondled my ear as a gourmet fondles a menu and then, with great care, it inserted its thin finger.
• As the whole mating desire appears to be triggered off by the combats between male rivals, it is possible that, as they become more and more scarce, (Ploughshare tortoises) may have difficulty... in finding a sufficient number of male rivals to trigger off the mating response.
• 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.
• In California... there is a species of fly that lives in lakes of crude oil, the larvae breathing through a tube, a sort of aqualung.
  
• Suddenly, from out of the undergrowth, silent as a cloud shadow, came a Fosa...
  
• I was tenderly transported to (the helicopter) and was flown the five hundred yards, tenderly extracted from the helicopter and deposited among the flowers to do my piece, then equally tenderly transported back to camp. It was the only time in my life that I have felt like Elizabeth Taylor.
• Madagascar and Brazil are the crystal-gathering centres of the world... Not unlike the monotonous cry of the African tinker bird, it sounded like somebody beating tin on a tiny anvil, producing a ringing, tinkling sound that was most attractive, like a marsh full of tiny frogs in nuptial chorus. Pursuing this sound to its source, I found a group of girls sitting in the shade of a makeshift matting shelter, each armed with a small hammer, beating at large crystals, reducing them to chips the size of a Brazil nut.
• Another magical creature is a large, rat-like beast who, should you encounter him, immediately starts to masturbate. With a serious air, you should take this curious behaviour in your stride and continue on your way. If you stop and laugh... he would fly into a rage and conjure up a huge storm.
• Under a lychee tree blushing with fruit, three zebu lay taking the shade, as Captain Bob used to put it, and against the silky warm flank of one of them their six-year-old herder lay asleep, his twig, his Excalibur, lying in his limp hand.
  

Much wiki: 'Solitaire (another extinct bird like the Dodo)', bushbaby, theodolite, jacana, sunbird, Gene Autry

Nice to see used: montane, aestivate, pontoon, macadamize, coracle, aspirate, chivvy, cutaneous, knees-up

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