48 
dies par le bout en coquilles, et comme elles sont fort 
épaisses en cet endroit-la, cela produit un agréable effet. 
Elles ont deux lévations sur le jabot, @un plumage 
plus blanc que le reste, & qui represente merveilleuse- 
ment un beau sein de femme. Elles marchent avec 
tant de fierté et de bonne grace tout ensemble, qu’on 
ne peut s’empécher de les admirer & de les aimer, de 
sorte que souvent leur bonne mine leur a sauvé la 
HISTORICAL EVIDENCES 
[Pant I. 
Risings on their Cras, and the Feathers are whiter 
there than the rest, which livelily represents the fine 
neck of a Beautiful Woman. They walk with so 
much Stateliness and good Grace, that one cannot help 
admiring and loving them; by which means their 
fine Mein often saves the Lives.”—p. 71. 
yie.’—p. 98. 
The author then proceeds as follows :— 
“Tho’ these Birds will sometimes very familiarly come up near enough to one, when we do not 
run after them, yet they will never grow Tame. As soon as they are caught they shed Tears without 
Crying, and refuse all manner of Sustenance till they die. 
“ We find in the Gizards of both Male and Female, a brown Stone, of the bigness of a Hen’s 
Egg, tis somewhat rough, flat on one side and round on the other, heavy and hard. We believe this 
Stone was there when they were hatched, for let them be never so young, you meet with it always. 
They have never but one of ’em, and besides, the Passage from the Craw to the Gizard is so narrow, 
that a like Mass of half the Bigness cou’d not pass. It servd to whet our Knives better than any 
other Stone whatsoever. When these Birds build their Nests, they choose a clean Place, gather 
together some Palm-Leaves for that purpose, and heap them up a foot and a half high from the Ground, 
on which they sit. They never lay but one Egg, which is much bigger than that of a Goose. The 
Male and Female both cover it in their turns, and the young is not hatch’d till at seven Weeks’ end: 
All the while they are sitting upon it, or are bringing up their young one, which is not able to provide 
for itself in several Months, they will not suffer any other Bird of their Species to come within two 
hundred Yards round of the Place; But what is very singular, is, the Males will never drive away the 
Females, only when he perceives one he makes a noise with his Wings to call the Female, and she 
The Female do’s the 
same as to the Males, whom she leaves to the Male, and he drives them away. We have observ’d this 
several Times, and I affirm it to be true. 
drives the unwelcome Stranger away, not leaving it till *tis without her Bounds. 
«The Combats between them on this occasion last sometimes pretty long, because the Stranger 
only turns about, and do’s not fly directly from the Nest. However, the others do not forsake it till 
they have quite driven it out of their Limits. After these Birds have rais’d their young One, and left it 
to itself, they are always together, which the other Birds are not, and tho’ they happen to mingle with 
We have often remark’d, that 
some Days after the young one leaves the Nest, a Company of thirty or forty brmgs another young 
one to it, and the new fledg’d Bird, with its Father and Mother joyning with the Band, march to some 
bye Place. We frequently follow’d them, and found that afterwards the old ones went each their 
way alone, or in Couples, and left the two young ones together, which we call’d a Marriage. 
“This Particularity has something in it which looks a little Fabulous, nevertheless, what I say 
is sincere Truth, and what I have more than once observ’d with Care and Pleasure.” 
other Birds of the same Species, these two Companions never disunite. 
This description is accompanied by a figure, which at once shews that the Solitaire was 
a very different bird from the Dodo; and its accuracy is attested by the fact that in a 
