52 ANATOMICAL EVIDENCES [Parr I. 
Mr. Telfair having thus procured from Rodriguez a collection of bones, presented one 
portion of them to the Zoological Society of London, and another to the Andersonian Museum 
at Glasgow. 
Mr. G. C. Cuninghame, of Port Louis, Mauritius, having been recently applied to by 
Sir W. C. Trevelyan, made several enquiries as to the locality above indicated, and gives a 
somewhat different account :— 
“T learn that the bones removed [in 1831] were found by digging in a place apparently hollowed 
out by the action of running water under a mass of rock on the side of a narrow chasm or ravine ; 
that the floor of the cavity is of dark coloured earth, slopmg sharply down to its mouth, near which, 
but zow considerably below the level of the cavity, a small stream runs at present.” 
In October 1845, Capt. Kelly, of H.M.S. Conway, made, at Mr. Cuninghame’s request, 
a search for the locality thus indicated. He was unsuccessful in finding the precise spot, 
but examined two caverns, one of which at the base of a cliff, contained numerous and beau- 
tiful stalactites; the other, which he was unable fully to explore for want of a ladder, is in 
a level piece of ground. ‘The floor of both caves, where not covered with stalagmite, is a fine 
red mould, which I strongly recommend to the attention of those who may hereafter have 
the happiness of digging for bones in Rodriguez. 
The bones which were sent to Paris were exhibited in 1830 by Cuvier to the Academy 
of Sciences (Ann. des. Sc. Nat. vol. xxi.; Revue Sept. 103, 104, 109, 110; Bull. Se. Nat. 
vol. xxii. p. 122.; Ed. Journ. Nat. Se. vol. il. p. 30), but no detailed account of them has yet 
been made public. Being anxious to compare them with the remains of the Dodo which we 
possess at Oxford, I applied to M. de Blainville to permit these bones to be brought to 
England. He at once gave his consent, and commissioned Professor Milne Edwards to 
bring them with him to the meeting of the British Association at Oxford in June 1847, 
an act of liberality which has enabled Dr. Melville and myself to make the desired comparison. 
We were further permitted, by the kindness of the Trustees of the Andersonian Museum 
at Glasgow, to exhibit to the Association the bones from Rodriguez presented to that institu- 
tion by the late Mr. Telfair. These gentlemen entrusted the relics to Sir W. Jardine, and 
allowed him not only to diffuse, by means of plaster casts, the information they convey, but to 
bring with him the bones themselves to the Meeting. 
The bones which were sent by Mr. Telfair in 1833 to the Zoological Society, have met 
with some unfortunate fate. Three or four years ago, Mr. Fraser, the late Curator of that 
Society, made at my request a diligent search for these specimens, but all his endeavours to 
find them were fruitless. Among the many treasures which have been presented to the Society 
during the last twenty years, and which for want of space are still buried in vaults and out- 
houses, he found the identical box sent by Mr. Telfair; but, alas! the bones of the Solitaire, 
apterous as it was, had flown away, and the only bones that remained belonged to Zortoises ! 
We are again, therefore, obliged to fall back upon historical records in place of ocular 
evidence. In the Proceedings of the Zoological Society for March 12, 1833, p. 32, we 
