214 REPORT — 1844. 



Solitaire, appears evidently to have been another lost species of terrestrial 

 bird distinct from the Dodo, and more allied in its characters to existing 

 species of Struthionidce. It is therefore probable that the supposed bones of 

 the Dodo, described by Cuvier as found beneath a bed of lava in the Mauritius, 

 but which M. Quoy states to have been in fact brought from Rodriguez, as 

 well as the bones from the latter island presented by Mr. Tel fair to the Zoolo- 

 gical Society (Proc.Zool.Soc, part i. p.31), butwhich have been unfortunately 

 mislaid, belonged, not to the Dodo, as Cuvier supposed, but to the Solitaire. 

 On this supposition we can the better account for a fact which threw doubt 

 at the time upon Cuvier's identification of the bones at Paris, namely, that the 

 sternum in this collection presented a mesial ridge, indicating strong pectoral 

 muscles. Novv Leguat tells us that the Solitaire, though unable to fly, had 

 its wings enlarged at the end into a knob, with which it attacked its enemies, 

 a structure which would require large pectoral muscles and a sternal crest. 

 These bones and others, said to be from the Mauritius, in the Andersonian 

 Museum at Glasgow and at Copenhagen, require further investigation, and 

 every additional fragment that can be recovered from the caverns or alluvial 

 beds of Mauritius, Rodriguez, or Bourbon, ought to be most carefully pre- 

 served. 



The island of Bourbon appears to have been inhabited at a recent date by 

 two species of birds allied to, but distinct from, the Dodo of Mauritius and 

 the Solitaire of Rodriguez. I lately found in a MS. journal given by the late 

 Mr. Telfair to the Zoological Society, an exact and circumstantial account of 

 two species of Struthious birds which inhabited Bourbon in 1670 (Zool. Pro- 

 ceedings, April 23, 18M, Ann. Nat. Hist., and Phil. Mag., Nov. IS**). It ap- 

 pears then that this small oceanic group of islands possessed several distinct 

 species of this anomalous family, the whole of which were exterminated soon 

 after the islands became tenanted by man. 



Evidence of the recent existence and probable extinction of another Stru- 

 thious bird has very lately come to light in New Zealand, where its bones are 

 occasionally met with in the alluvium of rivers. The first portion that was 

 brought to this country was a very imperfect fragment of a femur, which 

 Professor Owen did not hesitate to assign to an extinct gigantic bird allied to 

 the Emeu (Trans, of Zool. Soc, vol. iii. p. 29). This bold conclusion, which 

 from the imperfection of the data seemed prophetic rather than inductive, was 

 speedily confirmed by the arrival of fresh consignments of bones, and we are 

 now in possession of a considerable portion of the skeleton of this ornithic 

 monster, which has been appropriately named by Professor Owen Dinornis. 

 That skilful anatomist has even been enabled, from the materials already re- 

 ceived, to point out no less i\vAnJive species of this genus, differing in stature 

 and the proportions of their parts (Proc. Zool. Soc, Oct. IS^S). These birds, 

 if extinct, must have become so in very recent times, and probably through 

 human agency ; but it is as yet by no means certain that they do not still in- 

 habit the unexplored interior of the middle island of the New Zealand group. 

 See notices by Rev. W. Cotton in ' Zool. Proc.,' ISiS, and by the Rev. W. 

 Colenso in the ' Tasmanian Journal,' reprinted in the ' Annals of Nat. Hist.,' 

 vol. xiv. 



Another very interesting bird of the same region, the Apteryx, is now 

 threatened with the fate which has befallen the Dodo and (as presumed) the 

 Dinornis. Civilized man has already upset the balance of animal life in New 

 Zealand. It is stated by Dieffenbach that Cats, originally introduced by the 

 colonists, have multiplied greatly in the woods and are rapidly reducing the 

 numbers of the Apteryx, as well as of other birds, so that unless some Anti- 

 podean Waterton will disinterestedly enclose a park for their preservation, 



