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NATURAL HISTORY. 



negative. Baron Grant resided in Mauritius from 1740 to 1760; and his son, who compiled the 

 ' History of Mauritius ' from his papers, states that no trace of such a bird was to be found at that 

 time. M. Morel, a French official who resided there previously to 1778, and whose attention seems 

 to have been drawn to the subject by the judicious criticisms of Buffon, tells us that the oldest inhabi- 

 tants had no recollection of these creatures. The late M. Bory de St. Vincent remained for some time 

 in Mauritius and Bourbon in 1801, and has left an excellent work on the physical features of these 

 islands. He assures us that he made every possible inquiry respecting the Dodo and its allies, 

 without gaining the slightest information from the inhabitants on the subject. At a public dinner at 



the Mauritius in 1816, several persons from seventy to ninety yeai\s of age were present who 

 had no knowledge of such a bird from recollection or tradition. Mr. J. V. Thompson also resided 

 for some years in Mauritius and Madagascar previously to 1816, and he states that no more traces of 

 the existence of the Dodo could then be found than of the truth of the tale of ' Paul and Virginia,' 

 although a very general idea prevailed as to the reality of both. This list of negative witnesses may 

 be closed with the late Mr. Telfair, a very active naturalist, whose researches were equally conclusive 

 as to the non-existence of Dodos in Mauritius in modern times." 



Besides the Dodo of Mauritius, which island appears to have contained other extinct wingless 

 birds, there existed in the neighbouring island of Rodriguez another remarkable Pigeon, called the 

 Solitaire (Pezophaps solitarius), of which a number of relics were brought to England by the naturalist 

 attached to the Transit of Venus Expedition of 1874, so that nearly perfect skeletons of male and 

 female birds are now to be seen in the Natural History Museum at Kensington. 



