SOLITAIRE 889 
island,! the only other documentary evidence forthcoming is in an 
anonymous manuscript Lelation de Ile Rodrigue discovered, in 1874 
by Mr. Rouillard 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 Rendus, xxx. 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; Edinb. Journ. Nat. Se. 
iil. 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).2 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. Jenner, the 
resident magistrate in the island, to make further search, with the 
1 This astronomer and his colleague Le Monnier dedicated a southern con- 
stellation to the Solitaire ; but 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, Monticola solitarius. 
2 These two last are now in the Cambridge Museum. 
3 Owen was wholly wrong in his belief (7'’rans. Zool. Soc. vii. p. 519, note ; 
Ann. Nat. Hist. ser. 4, ix. pp. 168, 241, 321) that he had returned these 
specimens before. 
