SOLITAIRE 889 



island/ the only other documentary evidence forthcoming is in an 

 anonymous manuscript Relation de Vile Kodrigue discovered, in 1874 

 by Mr. Eouillard of Mauritius, in the archives of the Ministry of 

 Marine at Paris {Proc. Zool. Soc. 1875, pp. 39-42), and believed 

 by Prof. Milne-Edwards (Comptes liendns, Ixxx. pp. 1212-1216, and 

 An. Sc. Nat. ser. 6, ii. art. 4) to have been written about 1729. Even 

 this does not say very much of the Solitaire, though a great deal con- 

 cerning other birds of the island, and we are thrown back on 

 Leguat's description, the accuracy of which, so long impugned, has 

 been wonderfully confirmed by recent discoveries. So early as 1789 

 certain bones encrusted with stalagmite and obtained from a cave in 

 Rodriguez by a resident named Labistour, came into the hands of 

 Desjardins, who in 1830 sent five of them to Cuvier. He, believing 

 them to be those of the Dodo, and to have been found in Mauritius 

 under a bed of lava, laid them before the French Academy of Sciences 

 {Rev. Bibliogr. Ann. Sc. Nat. 1830, p. 104; Edmh. Joiirn. Nat. Sc. 

 iii. p. 31) ; but their true story was presently told to the Mauritian 

 Society by Desjardins himself {Proc. Zool. Soc. 1832, p. 111). In 

 1831 Mr. Eudes, at the instance of Telfair, dug from the same cave 

 a dozen bones {op. cit. 1833, p. 31), six of which were given to the 

 Andersonian Museum of Glasgow, and five (now in the British 

 Museum) to the Zoological Society, while a sixth was subsequently 

 presented by Bojer to Strickland, together with one from the 

 older "find" {Ann. Nat. Hist. ser. 2, iv. p. 326).^ Three other 

 bones, more or less imperfect, probably obtained by Telfair, were 

 in 1860 sent from the Museum at Port Louis by Bouton, who 

 rightly determined them, to Owen, in whose possession they re- 

 mained till 1877, when he handed them to Sir Edward Newton, 

 to be returned to their proper place.^ Thus just 21 

 specimens of bones ascribed to this bird were known to exist when 

 the gentleman last named visited Rodriguez, and entering a cave 

 on the 2nd November 1864, with the intention of seeking for 

 more, happily found two — one fragmentary the other perfect, 

 while Capt. Barclay afterwards gave him a third which he had picked 

 up {Proc. Zool. Soc. 1865, pp. 199-201; Ibis, 1865, p. 152). En- 

 couraged by this discovery. Sir Edward persuaded Mr. .Tenner, the 

 resident magistrate in the island, to make further search, with the 



^ This astronomer and his colleague Le Monnier dedicated a southern con- 

 stellation to the Solitaire ; hut instead of tracing its outline, as they might well 

 have done from Leguat's figure, they followed the ecclesiastical tradition and 

 chose that given by Brisson (Orn. ii. fol. xxviii. fig. 1) of the Philippine Rock- 

 Thrush, Mmiticola solitarius. 



^ These two last are now in the Cambridge Museum. 



^ Owen was wholly wrong in his belief {Trans. Zool. Soc. vii. p. 519, note; 

 Ann. Nat. Hist. ser. 4, ix. pp. 168, 241, 321) that he had returned these 

 specimens before. 



