144 Mr. G. Clark's Account of his Discovery 



and radii were so scarce that I found but four in all, and only 

 a single metacarpus. I met with one pair of tarsi belonging to 

 a young bird. Their identity is unmistakeable, and their bulk 

 less than one-fourth of that of the adult. 



By far the greatest portion of these bones might be divided into 

 two dimensions perceptibly differing, though not very unequal 

 in size, leading to the belief that the diversity in their respective 

 sizes arose from the difference of sex. 



All the specimens appear to have belonged to adult birds ; 

 and none bear any marks of having been cut or gnawed, or of 

 the action of fire. This leads me to believe that all the Dodos 

 of which the relics were found here were denizens either of 

 this marsh or its immediate neighbourhood, that they all died a 

 natural death, and that they were very numerous in Mauritius, 

 or at least in this part of it. The astonishment of some very 

 aged Creoles, whose fathers remembered Labourdonnais, at seeing 

 a quantity of bones of large birds taken from the mud in this 

 marsh, was really ludicrous. " How," said they, " could these 

 bones have got there ? Neither our fathers nor our grand- 

 fathers ever knew of any such birds, or heard of such bones 

 being found.'' Some of the bones bear evidence of having been 

 chafed by being carried along in a current of water. In a great 

 many, decay has begun at the extremities ; and numerous frag- 

 ments were found, the fracture of which appeared to me to have 

 taken place when the bones were dead and dry. Some speci- 

 mens were so fresh in appearance that they might have been 

 supposed to belong to animals recently killed : these were found 

 near springs, of which there are two or three in the marsh. 

 Others were as black as ebony ; and some found by the side of a 

 " Bois de Natte " tree [Labourdonneia revoluta) were nearly the 

 colour of mahogany, but became much paler in drying. 



Bones of the same sort were found mostly near each other, 

 one spot containing many pelves, another several sterna, and 

 so on. 



Among the bones of the Dodo were found many belonging to 

 the Flamingo, formerly abundant in Mauritius ; to the Whim - 

 brel, still common there ; to the Gallinule, also plentiful at pre- 

 sent ; and to the Egret, which has disappeared within the present 



