802 LT.-COL. N. MANDEES ON MAYEU's riGEON. [NoV. 12, 



half years, I should say this is an outside estimate. It is somewhat 

 difficult at first sight to account for their diminution, when we 

 consider that they are not destroyed by Europeans, and that 

 possessing a character for being unwholesome to eat they are not 

 ti"apped. It may fairly be said that in this instance at any rate 

 man is not directly responsible for its extinction. I say directly, 

 but indirectly he undoubtedly is. The Portuguese, who had 

 a penchant for monkey- flesh, introduced an Indian species of 

 monkey into the island shortly after they first discovei-ed it in the 

 middle of the sixteenth century. Until the last few years, these 

 animals confined their depredations to the jungle-covered hills 

 surrounding Port Louis and the adjoining cane-fields. Now, by 

 some unfortunate mischance, but probably by a necessary emigra- 

 tion owing to their increasing numbers, they have sjjread to 

 all pai'ts of the island, and the Savanne forests are overwhelmed 

 by their numbers. Not only do they do incredible damage by 

 destroying the fruits of valuable forest trees, but thej'^ destroy also 

 the seedlings and tender shoots of trees of larger growth ; and large 

 numbers of natives are constantly employed to keep them ofi:' the 

 cane-fields, where they do enormous mischief in the shortest possible 

 time. The Pigeons are totally unable to resist this invasion of their 

 last refuge as their nests, eggs, and young are ruthlessly destroyed ; 

 and the forest keepers inform me that in consequence the bfrds 

 have almost ceased to breed. It was in the Savanne forest that 

 the last specimen of the Dutch Pigeon [Alectroenas nitidissima), 

 now in the Port Louis Museum, was shot in the year 1826. It 

 seems strange that one species should survive the other for 

 close on a hundred years, and were it not for the pestilent monkey 

 would probably do so for another hundi'ed. I venture to give the 

 following explanation of the phenomenon. 



Heemskerk, who visited the island in 1601, mentions that the 

 sailors knocked down with their sticks a large number of pigeons 

 with " red tails," which on being eaten proved so disconcerting to 

 the Dutchmen's stomachs, making them violently sick, that they 

 subsequently left them severely alone, and they probably passed on 

 an account of their unpleasant experiences to others of their 

 countrymen. This evil repittation has happily survived to the 

 present day and with it the pigeon ; Avhereas the Dutch Pigeon 

 being a toothsome and withal a wholesome diet, has succumbed. 

 As a matter of fact Mayer's Pigeon is not unwholesome, though 

 this fact is carefully hidden away in the bosoms of local naturalists. 

 The Curator of the Port Louis Mviseum, wdio skinned one, had 

 sufficient courage to tackle the flesh, and found it uncommonly 

 tough but nothing more. At a certain season of the year the birds, 

 as I have said, leave the forest and come out into the adjoining- 

 scrub to feed on the berries of the "Tomdamane" [Aphloia thei- 

 formis), of which they are inordinately fond, and on which they 

 gorge themselves to repletion. It appears that these berries have 

 some intoxicating properties, as they render the birds so helpless 

 that they can be readily snared by a noose at the end of a stick. 



