ANCIENT FAUNA OF THE MASCARENE ISLAND!^. 3-45 



tymimnistria, bat evidently far better formed for flight. He has 

 named it Cohimba rodericana. ^ 



Parrots. — " The parrots observed by Legaat," writes M. A. 

 Mihie-Ed wards, " were of moderate size ; their phimage was gTeeii 

 and blue. They were very abundant, and the flesh of the young 

 ones had an agreeable taste. I have been able to see, according 

 to the manuscripts of Pingre, preserved in the library of Saint 

 Genevieve, that, in 1761, the date when that astronomer visited 

 the Island of Rodriguez to observe the passage of Venus, these 

 birds had commenced to become rare. Nevertheless, they do not 

 seem to have entirely disappeared, for lately M. Newton has 

 succeeded in procuring a parrot which, in all probability, is a 

 representative of the species observed by lieguat, for very many 

 bones found in the caverns of the island evidently correspond 

 with it. 



" This bird, quite distinct from all existing Psittacians, has been 

 described by M. Newton under the name of Pala'ornis exsul. 



"The same ornithologist has ascertained that the Agapornis cana, 

 a small parroquet common to Madagascar and Mauritius, inhabits 

 at the present moment Rodriguez, but the colonists assert that it 

 is of foreign origin, and add that it had been brought by an 

 American ship coming from Madagascar. As to the fossil great 

 paiTOt of Rodriguez, which I have already made known under 

 the name of Psittacus roderlcanus,''^ it cannot be connected cither 



1 Professor Newton described, in 1879, three skins of the Akctorcenax 

 nitidissima, the extinct pigeon of Mauritius (the Pigeon Hollandais of 

 Sonnerat, so cilled from its colours — red, blue, and white), which 

 remain in the museums at Paris, Port Louis, and Edinburgh. He says : 

 " Allied to this are three species which still survive, and are natives of 

 Madagascar, the Comoros, and the Seychelles. ... It is possible that 

 Rodriguez once possessed another member of tlie group, the Oduinha 

 rodericana of M. A. Milne-Edwards ; but we have not received sufficient 

 remains of that species (which is certainly extinct) to decide the point, 

 and the older voyagers give us no help here, as they do in many other 

 cases.'' {Pro. Zool. Soc, 1879, p. 2.) 



2 Psittacus rodericanus. — Among the bones extracted from the recent 

 earthy deposits of the caves in Rodriguez (186-4) was found the frag- 

 ment of a mandible, which was submitted by Sir Ed. Newton to Pro- 



