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fully aware it has been the practice of late to consider the animals 
obtained from localities remote from each other specifically distinct ; 
they may be so; but unless we have some certain means of distin- 
guishing them, I do not think we ought to regard them as such. 
I now venture to introduce to your notice what I believe to be the 
tibia of the Dodo (Didus ineptus): its agreement with the foot in 
the British Museum struck me as being exceedingly remarkable and 
conclusive: its size and proportions, as compared with the metatarsal 
in question, are exactly what I should have expected upon the sup- 
position of their belonging to the same species: they fit each other 
so perfectly, that one might think they belonged to the same indi- 
vidual. With this evidence before me, I cannot for one moment 
hesitate in considering the Dodo of the Mauritius to be identical with 
thé Dodo of Rodriguez. There are also in this collection two other 
bones, which, from their size and form, I believe to belong to this 
species: the most remarkable is the head of the humerus, which would 
indicate by its magnitude and broad attachments that it belonged to 
a bird of large bulk, while the sudden reduction in the size of its shaft 
clearly indicates a bird with small wings. The great thickness and 
consequent weight is sufficient to cause us to suppose that this bird 
had not the power of flight. 
The next bone to which I will call your attention is a right meta- 
tarsal, which appears to me to have belonged to a bird known to 
Leguat as the Solitaire, and described by him during his residence 
on the island of Rodriguez. I beg to read Leguat’s description, in 
order to point out to you its near agreement in point of size and form 
with the Turkey, with which bird Leguat compared the bird he called 
the Solitaire :— 
“Of all the birds in the island, the most remarkable is that which 
goes by the name of the Solitary, because it is very seldom seen in 
company, though there are abundance of them. The feathers of the 
male are of a brown-grey colour: the feet and beak are like a Tur- 
key’s, but a little more crooked. They have scarce any tail, but 
their hind part covered with feathers is roundish, like the crupper of 
a Horse; they are taller than Turkeys. Their neck is straight, and 
a little longer in proportion than a Turkey’s when it lifts up its head. 
Its eye is black and lively, and its head without comb or cop. They 
never fly, their wings are too little to support the weight of their 
bodies ; they serve only to beat themselves, and flutter when they 
call one another. They will whirl about for twenty or thirty times 
together on the same side, during the space of four or five minutes. 
The motion of their wings makes then a noise very like that of a 
rattle, and one may hear it two hundred paces off. The bone of 
their wing grows greater towards the extremity, and forms a little 
round mass under the feathers, as big as a musket-ball. That and 
its beak are the chief defence of this bird. ”Tis very hard to catch 
it in the woods, but easie in open places, because we run faster than 
they, and sometimes we approach them without much trouble. From 
March to September they are extremely fat, and taste admirably well, 
