Zoological Affinities of Aphanapteryx. 257 



known to zoologists, and remarkable for its long, pointed and 

 slightly decurved bill, the reddish colour and silky appearance 

 (resembling that of an Apteryx) of its plumage, the almost entire 

 absence of wings, and its stout feet, furnished with four toes, of 

 which the hind toes are well developed, and rest in a great 

 degree on the ground. 



This figure is the thirty -second oi the second volume of paint- 

 ings. It is immediately preceded by that of the Dodo and one 

 of a Cassowary, and is followed by one of a Flamingo. The 

 only date which can be found in the collection is that of the 

 year 1610 ; and the Cassowary which is represented was brought 

 from Java by the Dutch in 1597, and given to the Emperor 

 Rudolf II. by the Archbishop of Cologne. There is therefore 

 every reason to believe that these birds were living at the same 

 time in thelmperial Menagerie, which this Emperor and his father 

 Maximilian II. kept from 1545 to 1618, in the neighbourhood of 

 the castle of Elbersdorf, about a league to the eastward of 

 Vienna. The Dodo, which was drawn upon vellum, was per- 

 haps that which, according to De Bry, was brought from 

 Mauritius to Europe by the Dutch in 1599. 



Among the explorers who visited the Mascarene Islands 

 about this time, there are some who speak of certain birds of 

 which at the present day we have no knowledge. Thus Pieter 

 van den Broecke*, in the account of his voyage to Mauritius in 

 1617, figures, by the side of the Dodo, another bird (fig. 1), with 

 a rounded body, without wings, and with a long, pointed and 

 decurved bill. No description agrees with this figure, which 

 Strickland has reproduced ('The Dodo,' &c., p. 19t), only re- 

 marking of it upon the resemblance it bears to an Apteryx. 



In 1638, rran9ois Gauche % tells us that there were in Mau- 



* XXVjaarige reyse-beschryving naer Africa en Oost-Indien. 8vo, 

 Lewarden : 1617. '' Begineude Voortgangh der Vereen. Nederl. geoctr. 

 Oost-Ind. Coinpagnie," vol. 2, no, xvi. p. 102, pi. 7. 



t [We are much indebted to Mrs. H. E. Strickland for her liberality in 

 lending to this Journal the wood-blocks representing in facsimile this 

 figure and that given by Herbert (to be mentioned presently), which 

 appeared in her late lamented husband's admirable monogi-aph. — Ed.] 



X Relations v^ritables et cxurieuses de I'lsle de Madagascar. 4to, Paris : 

 1651, p. 132. 



