ANIMALS EXTINCT IN THE HISTORIC PERIOD. 343 



denote the places shared in possession with other harmless beings. 

 Travelers in old times have spoken of the hermit-bird of Kodriguez, 

 the red hen with a snipe's bill, the giant, the bluebird of Bourbon, the 

 hazel-fowl, and immense water-hens. The destruction of these animals 

 is utter. 



Francis Leguat, flying from France with a Protestant party, came 

 in 1691 to the island of Rodriguez, till then unexplored, and lived 

 there two years. The story of our compatriot's "Travels and Ad- 

 ventures" has been j)ublished; we find in it the description of the 

 fine bird called by him the hermit {Pezoplia'ps solitarius). Of all 

 the birds in Rodriguez Island, Leguat says this is the most remark- 

 able species. The males are variously feathered with gray and 

 brown, wdth the feet of a turkey, and the bill shaped like the turkey's 

 also, but a little more hooked. They are almost tailless, and their 

 rump is rounded and covered with feathers, higher on the legs than 

 the turkey ; they have a straight and rather long neck, a black spar- 

 kling eye, and a head without crest or tuft. The female, our traveler 

 says, is admirably beautiful ; there are blonds and brunettes among 

 them, marked on the forehead with a stripe like a widow's band, and on 

 the breast with plumage whiter than the rest of the body. They walk 

 with such a mingling of pride and gracefulness that one cannot avoid 

 admiring and loving them, so that their good looks often save their 

 lives. Not a feather lies uneven on their whole body, such pains do 

 they take to smooth and arrange their plumage with their bills. 

 These hermit-birds do not fly ; they only use their wings, which are 

 too small to bear the weight of the body, either in fighting or drum- 

 ming when calling each other. Leguat adds that they are taken with 

 great difliculty in the woods ; but in open places it is easy to run them 

 down, as they are not very swift. From March to September they 

 are extremely fat, and the taste, especially of the young ones, excel- 

 lent. Some among the males are found weighing forty-five pounds. 

 These birds, intending to build a nest, choose a clear spot, collect a 

 few palm-leaves, and raise the structure a foot and a half above the 

 surface ; they hatch but one egg at a time, and the male and female 

 sit alternately during seven weeks, the period of incubation, and for 

 some months longer the young bird needs assistance from the old ones. 

 These beautiful birds of Rodriguez, called hermits because they sel- 

 dom go in flocks, were abundant in the island at the end of the seven- 

 teenth century, when the French naturalist expressed such admiration 

 for them. Li a few years they have all perished, and nothing but 

 bones crusted with stalagmite permitted us to ascertain that the spe- 

 cies described by Leguat was of a kind unknown elsewhere, when an 

 English explorer, Newton, undertook to examine the caves and boggy 

 lands of the small island of Rodrisjuez. More than two thousand fraor- 

 ments, the last traces of the extinct bird, were collected. The study 

 of these wretched relics was made with the greatest care, and we now 



