1 52 Prof. Schlegel on some Extinct Gigantic Birds 



interesting, and he did not overlook the fact that "les os de ces 

 tortues sont massifs, je veux dire qu'ils n'ont point de moelle." 

 His description of the pine-apple*, which he had never before 

 seen, is very characteristic. Speaking of the rhinoceros f, he gives 

 copies of five figures and criticizes the writers whose imagination 

 led them to see several strange patterns on the hides of these 

 animals. That he made the drawings for his work himself and 

 in loco appears from his own expression J and from the nature of 

 the case. Those which he says were communicated to him con- 

 trast not a little with his own by their imperfection or strange- 

 ness, as may be seen, for example, in the figure of a lizard from 

 Gilolo, apparently a species of Gekko§. 



We deem it superfluous to expatiate further on the numerous 

 other observations which Leguat made on various animals and 

 plants. What we have stated is sufficient to show that we 

 have to deal with a man very difi^erent from the thousands or 

 hundreds of thousands who have travelled, and in these days yet 

 travel, in foreign countries for no other purpose than to find a 

 better position than in their own land, to acquire riches in the 

 shortest possible time, and who only observe surrounding 

 natural objects so far as they can be of use to their material 

 welfare. We have here before us one of the few men who have 

 loved nature for itself and not for their own interest — one who, 

 by a longer stay in the magnificent Mascarene Islands, would 

 doubtless have put a stop to the work of annihilation canned on 

 by his less-refined shipmates — since, speaking of the females of 

 the Solitaire of Rodriguez, he could say " elles marchent avec 

 tant de fierte et de bonne grace tout ensemble, qu'on ne pent 

 s'empecher de les admirer et de les aimer ; de sorte que souvent 

 leur bonne mine leur a sauve la vie^^ ||. 



That Leguat wrote his observations not after his return, but 

 on the spot itself, appears not only from the nature of the case, 

 but also from the statements above cited respecting the publi- 

 cation of his journal. Moreover he mentions also that on the 

 islands where he lived he left " memoriaux " enclosed in bottles — 

 at Mauritius in a hole of the rock whither he was banished, at 



* Op. cit. ii. p. 65. t Ihid. ii. p. 140. t I^'^(^- i- P- 64. 



§ Ibid. ii. p. 97. !| Ihid. i. pp. 99, 100. 



