RELATION DE L'ILE EODRIGUE. 337 



discovered by Mr. Newton {vide infra) ; and among the other little 

 birds was probably included Drymceca flavicans (?).] 



PAL^ORNIS EXSUL. 



Professor Newton refers in the Ihis^ to "the passage in Leguat's 

 narrative (see ante, p. 53), where he mentions the consolation that 

 traveller and his companions found in the abundance of Per- 

 roquets. In the first passage he records their predilection for 

 the nuts of a tree somewhat like an olive; in the second (i, p. 84), 

 he speaks of their being * verds <h ble^is, sur tout de mediocre 

 & d'egale grosseur', and having flesh not less good than that of 

 young Pigeons ; in the third (p. 105), he states that some of them 

 were instructed by his company, and that they took one, which 

 spoke French and Flemish, with them to Mauritius. 



" The second of the passages is so vague as to raise the question 

 whether there were green parakeets and blue parakeets, or only 

 parakeets possessing a combination of both colours, and the 

 solution of the doubt would require the discrimination of keen 

 judges. . . . 



" Pingre, who was in Piodriguez in 1761, writes (p. 195) : ' La 

 perruche me semblait beaucoup plus delicat.' [He had just been 

 mentioning the esculent qualities of a species of Pte7-02nis.] ' Je 

 n'aurais regrette aucun gibier de France, si celui-ci eut ete plus 

 commun a Rodrigue : mais il commence a devenir rare. H y a 

 encore moins de perroquets quuiqu'il y en ait eu encore autrefois 

 en assez grande qnantite, selon Fr. Leguat, et en eft'et une petite 

 isle au sud de Rodrigue a encore conserve le nom d'Isle aux 

 perroquets.' It would hence appear that there was a '• perruch^ 

 and a '■ x>erroriuet\ though unfortunately Pingre does not say 

 what either was like. 



" In 1864 Mr. Edward Newton observed a flock, and obtained an 

 example of what he believed to be Agapornis cana {vide infra), 

 a species introduced, no doubt, since Leguat's tim.e. In 1867 

 M. Edwards described a fragment of a parrot's mem^^a found with 



1 " On an Undescribed Bird from the Island of Rodriguez," by Alfred 

 Newton, M.A., F.R.S. {Ibis, 1872, p. 31.) 



Z 



