c. 



NOTES FROM A MEMOIR ON THE ANCIENT FAUNA 



OF THE MASCARENE ISLANDS/ 



By ]\I. a. Milne-Edwards. 



M. MiLNE-EDWARDa' remarks ou the ancient fauna of Rodriguez 

 are so important, as confirming and illustrating Leguat's veracity 

 and exactitude, that they cannot well be omitted. He writes : — 



" The Island of Rodriguez, although inhabited at the time 

 ■when Leguat lived there, seemed, from his accounts, to have a 

 rich vegetation and a varied fauna, whereas to-day the animals 

 there are almost entirely wanting, and its products hardly suffice 

 for the need of a small number of negroes whom the traders of 

 Mauritius keep there for their fishing operations. A cliange so 

 completely effected in less than two centuries appeared im- 

 probable, and the veracity of Leguat was doubted. 



"Nevertheless, the assertions of this naturalist deserve to be 

 received with confidence; for the remains belonging to some 

 extinct species, and discovered a few years ago in the cave earths 

 of the island, must be considered as so many irrefutable witnesses 

 of the exactitude of his observations. 



"The interesting investigations of MM. Strickland and Melville, 

 in 1848, and next of Messieurs Newton on the bird, which Leguat 

 called the Solitaire, initiated the scientific rehabilitation of this 

 traveller, and in a memoir published some years since I have 

 shown that conformably to his assertions there has formerly 

 existed at Rodriguez some great parrots, of which the species at 

 the present day exists neither in this island nor on any other 

 point of the globe. . . . 



" The diggings carried out under the direction of Mr. Edward 

 Newton have brought to light many other analogous remains, 

 and from their examination I am enabled to declare that besides 

 the Solitaires and the great parrots, of which I have just spoken, 

 there existed many other birds corresponding with the zoological 



1 Ann. Sc. Nat. Zno/., Ser. 5, viii, pp. 145 el stq. 



