374 JIB. A. NEWTON ON THE DIDINE BIRD OF BOURBON. 



year a French colonist from Madagascar, the Sieur Uu Bois*, gives a more detailed, but, 

 I suspect, a not very accurate, account of the species, under the name of " Solitaires:' 

 Here it is said of them, again, that they " ont le plumage blanc." Thus two out of 

 the four eye-witnesses speak to the plumage of the Bourbon Didine bird being white ; a 

 thu-d calls it " a changeable colour, which verges upon yellow," which, as Mr. Strickland 

 justly observes, " is rather vague, but seems to imply a pale yellomsh or cream-coloured 

 tint, which another author might easily have described as white "('The Dodo,' &c., 

 p. 60). The fourth witness does not mention the colour at all. 



This fourth witness, Bontekoe, however, furnishes some other evidence of value. He 

 calls the birds by the name of the true Mauritian Dodo ; and, from his description, they 

 undoubtedly much resembled that species in form. But further, one edition of Bontekoc's 

 work, published at Amsterdam by Gillis Joosten Zaagman in 1646, contains a figure 

 professing to be that of the Bourbon " Bodeersr This ic reproduced in fac-simile by 

 Mr. Strickland ; and though that gentleman says {op. dt. p. 63) " there can be no doubt " 

 it " refers to the true Dodo of Mauritius," I see no reason whatever for aii-iving at that 

 conclusion. This figure is unlike all the original representations of the true Dodo in 

 several minor points, but especially in one respect. The first four primaries are directed 

 (lownioards, and at the extremifi/ forwards. Now, in every picture and figure of the true 

 Dodo that I know of, all the primaries are directed backwards. 



I think, therefore, w^e may not unreasonably infer : — 



1. That the Didine bird of Bourbon in general shape resembled the true Dodo {IMus 

 inejttus) of Mauritius. 



2. That the plumage of the Didine bird of Bourbon was white, with some admixture 

 of yellow. 



3. That in the Bourbon Didine bird the first four primaiies of the wing were not 

 directed backwards, but downwards and forwards. 



A glance at the picture now exhibited (PI. LXII.) will show how far it fulfils these 

 conditions. 



But, on the other hand, T must not pass over what seems to be a formidable objection 

 to the supposition I have laid down. Du Bois describes his " Solitaires " as having " le 

 becq fait comme celuy des Becasses, mais plus gros." Nothing more unlike a Wood- 

 cock's bill can be imagined than that of the bird represented in Bontekoe's figure and 

 the drawing here ! But not one of the other eye-witnesses refers to such a peculiarity. 

 Two of them liken the Bourbon bird to a Turkey, the third to a true Dodo ; surely, then, 



* When Mr. Strickland wrote, in 184S, he was only ahlc to cite this witness from a JIS. copy of a journal 

 presented by Mr. Telfair to this Society, and still iu our library, in which the name of the author was not 

 given, but merely his initials. From a note of M. Milne-Edwards in a recent number of the ' Annales des 

 Sciences Naturelles" (vol. vi. pp. 42-44, Jidy ISGO), wc learn the name of the author of tliis journal, which, 

 we are informed, was published at Paris in 1G74. 



