160 Royal Society : — 



Encouraged by his former success, that one of the authors of the 

 present paper who had before been to Rodriguez urged Mr. George 

 Jenner, the magistrate of the island, to make a more thorough search 

 in its caves ; and in 1865 this gentleman sent no less than eighty-one 

 specimens to Mauritius. These were forthwith transmitted to Lon- 

 don, and exhibited at a meeting of the Zoological Society in that 

 year, when it appeared that the notion previously entertained of 

 there having been two species of Pezophaps was erroneous, and 

 that probably the difference in size of the specimens was sexual. 



News of this last discovery reached England during the meeting 

 of the British Association at Birmingham, and, prompted by Mr. 

 P. L. Sclater, that body made a liberal grant to aid further re- 

 searches. Owing to several causes, the scarcity of labourers in 

 Rodriguez being the chief, nearly a year elapsed before these could 

 he begun. But in 1866, some coolies having been expressly sent 

 thither to dig in the caves, a very large collection of the bones of 

 this bird, amounting to nearly two thousand specimens, was obtained. 

 These specimens include almost all the most important parts of the 

 skeleton, and furnish the authors with the material for the present 

 paper. 



This vast series of specimens shows that there was a very great 

 amount of individual variability in the bird, so much so as to render 

 the task of describing them minutely, and yet generally, a very diffi- 

 cult one. Yet, in consequence of this wealth of material, the authors 

 have greater confidence in the opinions they declare. Professor 

 Owen, having lately published a very detailed account of the osteo- 

 logy of the Dodo *, the present paper follows as closely as possible 

 the mode of treatment he therein adopted, the authors thinking that 

 they are so consulting the convenience of those who may wish to 

 compare the structure of the two allied birds. Thanks to him, 

 also, they have been able themselves to examine the very specimens 

 which he described ; and they are further indebted to many others 

 — Mr. George Clark of Mauritius, Professors Reinhardt, Fritsch, 

 and Alphonse Milne- Edwards, Sir WiUiam Jardine, and Mr. Flower, 

 for valuable assistance in the shape of models or other additional 

 material. To Mr. J. W. Clark they also mention their obligations 

 for reconstructing from specimens in their possession the skeletons 

 of the Dodo and of two Solitaires now exhibited. 



The description of the latter follows in much detail, the amount 

 of individual variability to which each bone was subject being spe- 

 cially dwelt on, and the whole compared bone by bone with that of 

 the Dodo and also of Didunculus. Pezophaps differs from Didun- 

 cuius quite as much as Didus does, but it is nearly allied to the 

 latter. Still there are important differences. The neck was much 

 longer than in Didus, and the vertebrae, on the whole, larger. The 

 ribs also possess perhaps somewhat thicker heads and articular tu- 

 bercles. The pelvis is much more rounded, and approaches that of 



* " On the Osteology of the Dodo {Didus inepttis, Linn.)," Tmna. Zool. Soc. 

 vol. vi. pp. 49-85. 



