274 Mons. A. Milne-Edwards on the 



of reserve ought to be maintained when it is a question of making 

 use, for the study of species, of the curt descriptions given by 

 travellers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. But 

 whether the Oiseau bleu was a Porphyrio * or a Notomis matters 

 little to the question of which we are treating here. It is any 

 how plain that it belongs to quite another genus from the 

 Solitaire [of Reunion] ; and if one regards this last as the 

 type of the genus, it should be distinguished from the Apterornis 

 ccprulescens. 



The Apterornis bonasia, which forms the third representative 

 of the Apterorriis of M. de Selys-Longchamps, is still more dif- 

 ficult to determine exactly ; for several species are found to be 

 united under this one name. Thus this specific type would 

 include : — 



First, the " Hen " of which Sir Thomas Herbert has left a 

 very imperfect figure (fig. 2), wherein the bill is long, straight, and 

 pointed, instead of being curved like that of Aphanapteryx. 

 There is no vestige of a tail, but it seems to have had extremely 

 short wings. This is the bird to which Prof. Schlegel has as- 

 signed the name of Didus herberti. 



Secondly, The Poule rouge au bee de Becasse of Cauche. 



Thirdly, The Gelinottes, which inhabited Rodriguez at the 

 time when Leguat lived there. These are distinguished clearly 

 from the preceding by their light grey colour, and by the form 

 of their bill, which was straight, pointed, and red. 



Lastly, M. de Selys-Longchamps finishes the passage relating 

 to his Apterornis bonasia by quoting the figure given in Van 

 den Broecke's voyage (fig. 1) . 



Accordingly Apterornis bonasia includes at least three dis- 

 tinct species, among which is to be found the Aphanapteryx of 

 Herr von Frauenfeld ; but for this bird that specific name cannot 

 be adopted, because it ought to be applied to the first species of 

 which M. de Selys-Longchamps speaks — that is to say, to that of 

 which Herbert has left a coarse figure (fig. 2), and of which the 

 chief characteristic is a straight and pointed bill. 



* [It has already been suggested (Maillard, Notes sur I'ile de la Re- 

 imion, Paris, 18G2, p. 159, and P. Z. S. 1865, p. 83G), that this " Oiseau 

 bleu" was P. ntudafffiscnriensis. — Ed.] 



