RELATION DE l'ILE RODPJGUE. 383 



not go beyond another. One is able to shelter oneself beneath, 

 the sun's rays not being able to penetrate below, so tufted are 

 they, and their leaves so well arranged. 



Sois hlanc et rouge^ are rare. 



Boia (Teponge^ is not altogether so rare as the preceding. 



There are, besides, other trees and shrubs of which I know not 

 the names. 



There is found a little Chiendent,^ and also Capillaire. 



Bois de demoiselle^ is rather rare. The small birds eat the 

 seeds of it. • 



There is found a little of the Bois de Lostan,^ which strongly 

 resembles the Bois de coudre/^ which is in France. 



[This Relation, proceeds M. Milne-Edwards, enables me to deter- 

 mine that forty years after the departure of Leguat, the fauna of 

 Rodriguez still included all the ornithological types, so interesting 

 to science, described by that traveller, and that their extinction is 

 posterior to that date. It gives us, as well, details of the manners, 

 forms, and colours of several species whose existence I had 

 ascertained, with their zoological affinities, from their bone remains 

 alone, and it confirms the results at which I had arrived. It deals 

 successively with the Solitaires, and the birds which I have made 

 known under the names Erythromachus Leguati, Ardea megace- 

 phala, Athene murivora, and of N^ecropsittacus 7'odericcmusJ^ 



LAND BIRDS. ^ 



The Solitaire is a large bird, which weighs about forty or fifty 

 pounds. They have a very big head, with a sort of frontlet, as if 



' Bois hlanc, et ronge. 



2 Bois d'cponge. Gastouia cutispongia. (Balfour, p. 344:.) 



3 Chiendeut. Cynodon Dactt/lon. Capillaire. Adianium Capillns 

 Veneris. (Balfour, pp. 384, 386.) Vide snpra, p. 324. 



* Bois de demoiselle, Kirganelia virgiuea. Phyllantlius Casticus, 

 now called castique. (BaJfour, p. 369.) 



5 Bois de Losta. Nuxia verticillata. 



" Coudrier, the filbert or hazel. 



7 Annales des Sciences Naturelles. 



^ Vide Translation and Comments of Professor Alfred Newton, 

 F.R.S., in Proceedings of Zoologiccd Society, 1875. 



