— 108 — 



in vain for the promised memoir. A few days ago, M. 

 Alplionse Milne -Edwards was so good as to send me 

 tracings of the sketches, which he had obtained during a 

 recent visit to Leyden ; and I now have the pleasm^e of 

 showing them to the Members of the Society present. 



" The figm^es of the Dodo do not call for much 

 remark ; but no one can look at them without perceiving 

 that, rough as they are, they must have been drawn by no 

 common hand and evidently from the life. The various 

 attitudes in which the bird is represented certainl}^ assist 

 us in forming a conception of what it must hav^e been 

 like. 



" The sketch of ApJianaptenjx would seem to have 

 been taken from a freshly-killed bird, as it might have 

 lain on the ground before the limner. But this also, so far 

 as I can judge, does not add to our knowledge of this 

 remarkable form, which we have already so well depicted 

 by Iloefnagel. 



" The remaining tracing is of more importance. I 

 think Prof, Schlegel is clearly right in assigning it to 

 Psittacus ijiaiirit/aniis, Owen*, which we only know from 

 a few bones. The most extraordinary feature it presents 

 is perhaps the frontal crest, of a shape C|uite unlike that 

 found, so far as I am aware, in any other form of Parrot, 

 rising as it does from the very base of the bill and termi- 

 nating before it reaches the occiput, which appears to be 

 flat and smooth. No sooner did I see this singular crest 

 than it struck me that the figm'e of a bird given in one 

 of the plates to Van Neck's Voyage, which has always 

 been a puzzle to everybody, must have been intended for 

 this species. The plate was copied in facsimile for Strick- 

 land^s work t : and the description of this particular 

 figure (5) is given by him thus : — 



* Ibis, 1866, p, 168, f « The Ded« and its Kindred,' pi. ji, 



