of the Mascarene Islands. 1G3 



bable, too, that Flamingos which were found in Madagascar, as 

 Flaeourf^ says, should visit Bourbon and Mauritius in their 

 wanderings. The Giant Waterhen, on the contrary, was 

 doubtless not found in Madagascar, since no writer men- 

 tions it. 



We come now to the second extinct bird of the Mascarene 

 Islands, which, in our opinion, has been completely mistaken by 

 authors. This is the so-called Oiseau bleu of Bourbon, described 

 in the manuscript of a certain D.B.f, where [p. 183] we read as 

 follows : — " Oiseaux bleus, gros comme les Solitaires, ont Ic plu- 

 mage tout bleu, le bee et les picds rouges faits comme pieds de 

 ponies, ils ne volent point,mais ils courent extremementvite,telle- 

 ment qu^un chien a peine d^en attraper a, la course ; ils sont tres 

 bous." The size of the Solitaire is given in the same manuscript as 

 that of a " grosse Oye " ; while Castleton, or rather Tatton J, and 

 Carre §, both give the Solitaire the size of a Turkey. Strick- 

 land's II opinion on this bird runs as follows : — " I should have 

 been disposed to refer the " Oiseau bleu " to the genus Porplujrio, 

 were we not told that they were the size of the Solitaire, i. e. of 

 a large Goose, that the feet resembled those of a hen, and that 

 they never fly." These objections are, however, of no value; for, 

 1st, we know a species of Porphyrio (the Notornis mantelli of 

 New Zealand) which is neai^ly as big as a Goose; 2ndly, there 

 are several species of Waterhens whose feet are like those of a 

 Hen, or, in other words, which have thick feet with toes short 

 in proportion, as, for instance, Triboni/x,Oci/d7-0)nus,said Notornis; 

 3rdly, the wings also of Notornis and Ocydromus are unfit for 

 flight, and the quills of the last-named bird are even as soft as 

 ordinary feathers. The guarded, though incorrect, opinion of 

 Strickland has been followed by the strange theory of De Selys- 

 Longchamps^ concerning the Oiseau bleu of Bourbon ; for he has 

 referred this bird to one and the same family as the entirely 



* Histoire de la grande ile de Madagascar, 1661, p. 164, under the 

 name of Sambe. 



t Mentioned for the first time by Strickland in the ' Proceedings of 

 the Zoological Society ' for 1844, p. 77, and afterwards in his work ' The 

 Dodo, &c.,' p. 59. 



X Purchas, Pilgrimes, 1625, i. p. 331. § Voyages, i. p. 12. || Loc. cit. 



^ Revue Zoologique, Oct. 1848, p. 3 {jwtiiis, p. 294]. 



M 2 



