of the Dodo (Dldus inej)tus Lin.). 445 



1614. — In the voyage of Castleton, he touched at Bourbon 

 (Mascarenhas of the Portuguese), at that time " still uninha- 

 bited, although occasionally visited by the early voyagers. 

 Amongst the birds, he particularises a kind of bird of the size 

 of a goose, very fat, with short wings, which do not permit 

 them to fly. They have since (he says) been called the giant, 

 and the Isle of France (Mauritius) also produces plenty of 

 them. It is "isohite^ and naturally so tame as to allow itself to 

 be taken by the hand ; or, at least, they were so little afraid at 

 the sight of the sailors, it was easy for them to kill great num- 

 bers with sticks and stones." 



1691. — We come now to Leguat, who, with seven others, 

 was left upon Rodrigue, with a view to colonisation. May 

 1691 ; and we may judge of the impression which this singular 

 bird must have made upon the mind of the narrator, when we 

 perceive that he has introduced figures of it into his frontis- 

 piece, his general chart of the island, and his plan of their 

 little colony ; in the latter twelve, and in the former sixteen, 

 individuals being distributed over their respective surfaces. 



The Island of Rodrigue, or Diego Ruys, although seen by 

 several of the earlier voyagers, after the discovery of the route 

 to India by the Cape, does not appear to have been visited 

 anterior to the voyage of Leguat, from its unapproachable 

 appearance, and the apparent continuity of the extensive ma- 

 dreporetic reef which everywhere surrounds it, and upon which 

 the sea continually breaks, at a very considerable distance 

 from the shore ; the same causes still operate in repelling the 

 tide of colonisation, as, at the time of our late conquest of the 

 group to which it belongs, a single French family constituted 

 the whole of its population. Leguat and his companions, 

 then, may be presumed to have seen it in its virgin state ; a 

 circumstance which makes his narration doubly interesting, 

 and shows not only the abundance of its animal productions, 

 but the paradisiacal peace and amity which appeared to reign 

 amongst them, and the little dread they seemed to possess at 

 the presence of their destined destroyer. Of the dodo, the 

 subject of this paper, he says: — 



" Of all the birds which inhabit this island, the most re- 

 markable is that which has been called Solitaire (the solitary), 

 because they are rarely seen in flocks, although there is abun- 

 dance of them. 



" The males have generally a greyish or brown plumage, 

 the feet of the turkey-cock, as also the beak, but a little more 

 hooked. They have hardly any tail, and their posterior, 

 covered with feathers, is rounded like the croup of a horse. 

 They stand higher than the turkey-cock, and have a straight 



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