History of Madagascar
Europe knew of Madagascar through Arab sources; based on them "The Travels of Marco Polo" claimed that "the inhabitants are Saracens, or followers of the law of Mohammed", without mentioning other inhabitants. Other than its size and location, everything about the island in the book describes southeastern Africa, not Madagascar. European contact began on 10 August 1500, when the Portuguese sea captain Diogo Dias sighted the island after his ship separated from a fleet going to India. The Portuguese continued trading with the islanders and named the island "São Lourenço" (Saint Lawrence). In 1666, François Caron, the director general of the newly formed French East India Company, sailed to Madagascar. The company failed to establish a colony on Madagascar but established ports on the nearby islands of Bourbon (now Réunion) and Isle de France (now Mauritius). In the late 17th century, the French established trading posts along the east coast. On Île Sainte-Marie, a small island off the northeastern coast of Madagascar, Captain Misson and his pirate crew allegedly founded the famous pirate utopia of Libertatia in the late 17th century. From about 1774 to 1824, Madagascar was a favorite haunt for pirates. Many European sailors were shipwrecked on the coasts of the island, among them Robert Drury, whose journal is one of the few written depictions of life in southern Madagascar during the 18th century. Sailors sometimes called Madagascar "Island of the Moon".
Malagasy white-eye
In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the Malagasy white-eye in his "Ornithologie" based on a specimen collected in Madagascar. He used the French name "Le petit figuier de Madagascar" and the Latin "Ficedula Madagascariensis minor". Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his "Systema Naturae" for the twelfth edition, he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson. One of these was the Malagasy white-eye. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name "Motacilla maderaspatana" and cited Brisson's work. Although Linnaeus gave the type locality as Madagascar he confusingly used the specific name "maderaspatana" which is New Latin for Madras (now Chennai) in India. This species is now placed in the genus "Zosterops" that was introduced by the naturalists Nicholas Vigors and Thomas Horsfield in 1827.