381 



DODO. 



DODO. 



382 



heap them up a foot and a half high from the ground, on which they 

 sit. They never lay but one egg, which is much bigger than that of 

 a goose. The male and female both cover it in their turns, and the 

 young ia not hatched till at seven weeks' end. All the while they are 

 sitting upon it, or are bringing up their young one, which ia not able 

 to provide for itself in several months, they will not suffer any other 

 bird of their species to come within two hundred yards round of the 

 place ; but what is very singular is, the males will never drive away 

 the females, only when he perceives one he makes a noise with his 

 wings to call the female, and she drives the unwelcome stranger away, 

 not leaving it till it is without her bounds. The female does the same 

 as to the males, whom she leaves to the male, and he drives them 

 away. We have observed this several times, and I affirm it to be true. 

 The combats between them on this occasion last sometimes pretty 

 long, because the stranger only turns about, and does not fly directly 

 from the nest ; however the others do not forsake it till they have 

 quite driven it out of their limits. After these birds have raised their 

 young one, and left it to itself, they are always together, which the 

 other birds are not ; and though they happen to mingle with other 

 birds of the same species, these two companions never disunite. We 

 have often remarked, that some days after the young one leaves the 

 nest, a company of thirty or forty brings another young one to it, and 

 the new-fledged bird, with its father and mother joining with the 

 band, march to some bye-place. We frequently followed them, and 

 found that afterwards the old ones went each their way alone, or in 

 couples, and left the two young ones together, which we called a 

 marriage. This particularity has something in it which looks a little 

 fabulous ; nevertheless, what I say is sincere truth, and what I have 

 more than once observed with care and pleasure." The worthy nar- 

 rator then indulges in some reflections on marriages in general, and 

 early marriages in particular. It is worthy of note, with reference to 

 the alleged juxtaposition of the bones of a large land-turtle and those 

 <>( the Dodo, to which we shall have occasion to allude, that the same 

 author, in the description of the game island, speaks of the multitude 

 of land-turtles ; of which he says, " I have seen one that weighed one 

 hundred pound, and had flesh enough about it to feed a good number 

 of men." 





Solitary Bird of Leguat. 



The preceding cut is copied from Leguat's figure of ' the Solitary 

 Bird.' 



In the frontispiece if represented one in a sort of landscape, and 

 also land-turtles ; and in ' a plan of the settlement ' in the island of 

 liodrigo, many, some in pairs, are placed about. This plan shows the 

 situation of the houses, &c. of Leguat and his companions ; there are 

 also land-turtles and other animals. 



Although Rodriguez ia now a British colony we have no further 

 testimony about living Solitaries. Persons resident on the spot have 

 in<|iiired with the name results as have attended inquiries after the Dodo 

 in Mauritius. Bone*, probably of this bird, have however been found. 



ID a letter addremed to the Secretary of the Zoological Society by 



Charles Telfair, Esq., Corr. Memb. Zool. Soc., dated Port Louis 

 Mauritius), November 8, 1832, and read before a meeting of the 

 society on the 12th March 1833, it appeared that Mr. Telfair had 

 recently had opportunities of making some researches about the 

 juried bones of the Dronte or Dodo found in the Island of Rodriguez. 

 The result of these researches he communicated, and inclosed letters 

 addressed to him by Colonel Dawkins, military secretary to the 

 "overnor of the Mauritius, and by M. Eudes, resident at Rodriguez. 

 Colonel Dawkins, it was stated, in a recent visit to Rodriguez, 

 conversed with every person whom he met respecting the Dodo, and 

 aecame convinced that the bird does not exist there. The general 

 statement was that no bird is to be found there except the Guinea- 

 Fowl and Parrot. From one person however he learned the 

 existence of another bird, which was called Oiseau-Boeuf, a name 

 derived from its voice, which resembles that of a cow. From the 

 description given of it by his informant, Colonel Dawkins at first 

 believed that this bird was really the Dodo ; but on obtaining a 

 specimen of it, it proved to be a Gannet (apparently referrible to the 

 Lesser Gannet of Dr. Latham, the Sula Candida of Brisson, and the 

 Pelecanus Piscator of Linnseus). It is found only in the most secluded 

 parts of the island. Colonel Dawkins visited the caverns in which 

 bones have been dug up, and dug iu several places, but found only 

 small pieces of bone. A beautiful rich soil forms the ground-work of 

 them, which is from six to eight feet deep, and contains no pebbles. 

 No animal of any description inhabits these caves, not even bats. 



M. Eudes succeeded in digging up in the large -cavern various bones, 

 including some of a large kind of bird, which no longer exists in the 

 island : these he forwarded to Mr. Telfair, by whom they were 

 presented to the Zoological Society. The only part of the cavern in 

 which they were found was at the entrance, where the darkness 

 begins ; the little attention usually paid to this part by visiters may 

 be the reason why they have not been previously found. Those near 

 the surface were the least injured, and they occur to the depth of three 

 feet, but no where in considerable quantity ; whence M. Eudes con- 

 jectured that the bird was at all times rare, or at least uncommon. 

 A bird of so large a size as that indicated by the bones had never 

 been seen by M. Gory, who had resided forty years on the island. M. 

 Eudes added that the Dutch who first landed at Rodriguez left cats 

 there to destroy the rats which annoyed them : these cats have since 

 become very numerous, and prove highly destructive to poultry ; and 

 he suggested the probability that they may have destroyed the large 

 kind of bird to which the bones belonged, by devouring the young 

 ones as soon as they were hatched a destruction which may have 

 been completed long before the island was inhabited. 



The bones procured by M. Eudes for Mr. Telfair were presented by 

 that gentleman to the Zoological Society. At the reading of the 

 letter, &c., they were laid on the table, and consisted of numerous 

 bones of the extremities of one or more large species of Tortoise, 

 several bones of the hinder extremity of a large bird, and the head of a 

 humerus. With reference to the metatarsal bone of the bird, which 

 was long and strong, Dr. Grant pointed out that it possessed articulat- 

 ing surfaces for four toes, three directed forwards and one backwards, 

 as in the foot of the Dodo preserved in the British Museum, to which 

 it was also proportioned in its magnitude and form. (' Zool. Proc.' 

 1833, Part 1.) 



The bones belonging to the birds here spoken of, Mr. Strickland 

 believes were those of the Solitaire. They were lost before he 

 began to investigate the subject. He however had an opportunity 

 of examining the bones before alluded to as preserved in the Museum 

 in Paris, and also a collection of bones made by Mr. Telfair in Rodri- 

 guez, and now in the Andersonian Museum at Glasgow. The bones 

 from Paris and Glasgow were found to agree, and were referrible to a 

 bird having the characters of the Solitaire as described by Leguat. 

 They however differed from those of the Dodo, but were found to pre- 

 sent affinities to the Columbidfs equally as strong as those of the Dodo. 

 From occasional notices amongst early travellers, Mr. Strickland 

 comes to the conclusion that also in the island of Bourbon there 

 formerly existed a brevipennate bird or birds, homologous with the 

 Dodo and Solitaire, that are now extinct. He refers also to a notice 

 by Flacourt of a large brevipeunate bird as an inhabitant of Mada- 

 gascar. He thus concludes this part of his work : " On a review of 

 the various historical and osteological evidences which I have now 

 brought together, it seems sufficiently clear that the three oceanic 

 islands, Mauritius, Rodriguez, and Bourbon, which, though somewhat 

 remote from each other, may be considered as forming one geogra- 

 phical group, were inhabited until the time of their human colonisation 

 by at least four distinct but probably allied species of brevipeunate 

 birds. This result at once reminds us of the analagous case of the 

 New Zealand group of islands, where the scientific zeal of Messrs. 

 Cotton, Williams, Colenso, Mantell, and others has brought to light 

 a mine of osteological treasures, from which the consummate sagacity 

 of Professor Owen has reconstructed two new genera of brevipennate 

 birds. Seven species of Dinornit and two of Palapteryx have been 

 clearly established and elaborately described by Professor Owen ; while 

 in the still surviving genus Apteryx, of which Mr. Gould has very 

 recently described a second species, we see an almost expiring mem- 

 ber of the game zoological group. The extraordinary success of the 

 naturalists of New Zealand in procuring from recent alluvial deposits 



