1 69 1.] WOOD HENS. 81 



Nature wou'd be most pleased, and the Common-Wealth 

 most benefited ; for Divine and Human Laws, are only 

 Precautions against the disorders of Mankind. Know, kind 

 Eeader, that my chief Employment in this Desart Island was 

 thinking, and suffer me therefore sometimes to speak my 

 Thoughts. I have already giv'n you notice, that you were 

 not to expect a Dissertation on the Antiquity of Greek 

 Accents, nor on Manuscripts of our Eden, nor on the Medals 

 found there, any more than Descriptions of its Ani[)hitheaters, 

 Palaces and Temples. 



Our Wood-hens^ are fat all the year round, and of a most 

 delicate Tast. Their Colour is always of a bright Gray, and 

 there's very little difference in the Plnmoge between the two 

 Sexes. They hide their Nests so well, that we cou'd not find 

 'em out, and consequently did not tast their Eggs. They 

 have a red List- about their Eyes, their Beaks are straight 

 and pointed, near two Inches long, and red also. They 

 cannot fly, their fat makes 'em too heavy for it. If you 

 offer them any thing that's red,^ they are so angry they will 

 fly at you to catch it out of your Hand, and in the heat of 

 the Combat, we had an opportunity to take them with ease. 

 We had abundance of Bitterns,-* as big and as good as 



1 la orig. " Gelinotes", an extinct form of PuiUkhe, closely allied 

 to the Aplianapteryx of Mauritius. Cf. RecliercTies siir la faiine ancienne 

 des lies Mascarcignes, par Alph. iVlilne Edwards in Ann. des Sc. not. Zool., 

 6me serie, t. xix, art. 3, and, by the same author, Sur les affinites 

 zoologiques de VAphanciptcryx, etc., op. c, x, 325. 



2 In orig.: " ourlet rouge autour.'' Anglo-Saxon List; Icel. listi ov 

 fillet ; a list of cloth is the outer ed^e or border. 



Cf. Shakespeare, " Gartered with a red and blue list." (Taming of 

 the Shreic, iii,2.) 



3 M. Milne Edwards proposes the name Erythromachus, i.e., " Hostile 

 to red,'' for this genus, and has named the ?pecios here described after 

 our author, E. Leguaii. But Messrs. Giinther and Newton prefer 

 lookiug upon the Rodriguez bird as a smaller species of Aphanapteryx, 

 and to treat of it as A. Leguati. Cf. Phil. Trans., op. c, p. 431. Vide App. 



* In orig. '' Butors"'. The bitterns mentioned seem to have been 

 night-herons, Nycticorax megacephalus. This night-heron was clearly 



G 



