INTRODUCTION. xlix 



during the period between 1760-1790 that the final 

 disappearance of the species may have taken place. 

 The next excavations were made by Capt. Kelly, 

 R.N., of H.M.S. Conway, at the request of Mr. 

 Cunninghame, in 1845, but the search was unsuc- 

 cessful. The bones procured by M. Telfair were 

 exhibited by M. Cuvier in Paris, and subsequently 

 compared by Messrs. Strickland and Melville with 

 the remains of the Dodo in the Ashmolean Museum 

 at Oxford. The reconstruction of the ideal skeleton 

 from these fragments showed that the species to 

 which they belonged was unquestionably allied to, 

 though not identical with, the Dodo, and it was 

 rightly assumed that they belonged to the species 

 described and figured by Leguat as the Solitaire. 

 It was also discovered by these eminent naturalists 

 that the points of agreement between these two 

 extinct birds are ''shared in common ivith the Pigeons, 

 and exist in no other known species of hird'\ A 

 triumph of ornithological diagnosis. 



The coral reefs round Rodriguez have ever been a 

 source of danger to seamen navigating those seas, 

 especially on the homeward route. In 1843, two 

 vessels were wrecked upon the Quatre-vingt Brisans 

 at the S. W. extremity of the island, where the weaves 

 break at a great distance from the shore. ^ The 



1 "The Queen Victoria, 715 tons, which left Bombay on the 

 11th March 1843^ bound for Liverpool, struck on the south-west 

 reefs, off Eodrigues, during a gale of wind, on the morning of the 

 7th of April, and became a total wreck. The commander, Cap- 

 tain Black, most of the passengers, and several of the crew were 



d 



