EX TERMINA TION 2 1 7 



and gone. Of this not a relic has been handled by any naturalist. 

 The latest description of it, by Du Bois,^ is meagre in the extreme, 

 and though two figures — one by Bontekoe (circa 1646) and another 

 by Pierre Witthoos {oh. 1693) have been thought to represent it 

 (Trans. Zool. Soc. vi. p. 373, pi. 62), their identification is but 

 conjectural. Yet the existence of such a bird is indubitable. 



Far to the eastward of these two sister islands lies a thiixl 

 — Rodriguez. Here there formerly lived another Didine bird, 

 sufficiently distinct from the Dodo of Maiu-itius to form a genus of 

 its own — Pezophaps solitarkis, the Solitaire of Leguat, a Huguenot 

 exile who, passing some time in 1691-93 on that island, has left, 

 with a very inferior figure, a charmingly naive account of its 

 appearance and habits, the general truth of which has been amply 

 substantiated by Sir Edward Newton's discovery in large numbers 

 of its bones (Fhil Trans. 1869, p. 327). These have since been 

 supplemented by those collected by Mr. H. H. Slater in 1874 {op. cit. 

 vol. 168, p. 438), and now nearly complete specimens may be seen 

 in several of the principal Museums of this country, the most 

 perfect being one of each sex in that of the University of Cam- 

 bridge. 



Nor does this group of Didine birds contain all the lost forms 

 of the Mascarene islands. From ]\Iauritius have disappeared at 

 least two species of Parrot, a Dove,- a large Coot, and a second 

 Ralline bird, abnormal, flightless, and long-billed — Aphanapteryx. 

 A painting of this last was found by Von Frauenfeld in the 

 emperor's library at Vienna, and some of its bones rescued by Sir 

 Edward Newton from the peat of the Mare aux Songes, have been 

 fully described by Prof. A. Milne-Edwards. Remains of the Coot 

 and one of the extinct Parrots were found also in the same spot, 

 while skins of the other Parrot and of the Dove still exist in a few 

 museums. Reunion, also, once had other birds now lost, and so 

 had Rodriguez. In the former, a somewhat abnormal Starling, 

 Fregilupus, existed until some forty years ago, and its skin and 

 skeleton are among the treasures of three or four museums.^ 



this last statement allowance may perhaps be made for some exaggeration, but 

 a Monkey, the Macacus filccdus, still inhabits Mauritius, and though I know no 

 record of its introduction, introduced it must have been from Ceylon, to which 

 island the species is peculiar. We may be certain that there were no Monkeys 

 in Mauritius or any of the Mascarene Islands at the time of their discovery. 



^ Les Voyages fails far le Sieur D. B. aux Isles DaupMne ou Madagascar, & 

 Bourbon, ou Mascarenne, e's ann6es 1669.70. 71. & 72. p. 170. (Paris : 1674.) 



^ Alectorcenas nitidissima. For a notice of the specimen in the Museum of 

 Science and Art in Edinburgh, and the only one known to exist in the United 

 Kingdom, see Proc. Zool. Soc. 1879, pp. 2-4. 



^ The only known skeleton is in the Museum of the University of Cambridge, 

 and has been minutely described by Dr. Murie [Proc. Zool. Soc. 1874, pp. 474- 

 488). In 1889 the British Museum obtained, at the dispersal of the Riocour 



