196 Walter Rothschild: 



many cases was purely physical, though, in the Moriori 

 middens most of the sj)ecies occurred. Another most interest- 

 ing fact connected with these extinct Chatham Island birds 

 is that some of them are representative species of the 

 forms peculiar three hundred years ago, to the Mascarene 

 Islands. 



Among the many hundreds of thousands of bones from 

 these deposits in the possession of the author and Dr. H. 0. 

 Forbes, it has been possible to make out a number of species 

 such as Nestor, Ocydromus, Garpophaga, Columba, Chenopsis, 

 Catarrhactes, Puffinus, Diomedea, and many others, all of which 

 still await final description, but the best represented forms 

 consist of the extraordinary Chatham Raven, Pcdaeocorax 

 moriorum, the large Rail, Diaph or aptéryx hawMnsi, a Coot, 

 Palaeolimnas chathamensis, another Rail, Nesolimnas dieffen- 

 bachi, and a Snipe, Gallinago chathamica. Diaphor aptéryx and 

 Palaeolimnas take the place on the Chatham Islands of the 

 Mascarene Aphanapteryx broecJci and Palaeolimnas newtoni. 



In the Mascarene Islands, during the excavations in the 

 Mare aux Songes and on Rodriguez, besides the bones of the 

 birds we have fuller knowledge of from the old travellers, there 

 have been found bones of other species, and the following have 

 been established from the evidence of odd bones or even 

 fragments only: Mauritius Goshawk, A st uralphonsi; Mauritius 

 Barn Owl, Strix sauzieri ; Mauritius Bittern, Butorides 

 mauritiana; Mauritius Lobed Goose, Sarcidiornis mauritianus ; 

 Mauritius Duck, Anas theodori ; and lastly,, the Rodriguez 

 Owl, Athene murivora ; and the Rodriguez Dove, Alectroenas 

 rodericanus. Of these we know nothing except that they 

 were first mentioned about 1560, and lasted till about 1680. 



We now come to the second section of entirely extinct 

 birds, namely, those of which we know the external appearance. 

 I will commence with the avifauna of the Mascarene Islands. 

 When the early Dutch and French travellers first landed on 

 these islands they were astonished to find them covered with 

 gigantic land tortoises and a multitude of very strange birds. 

 The most widely known and striking birds were the large 

 flightless Pigeons, the Dodos, or Drontes. There were 3 

 species of these birds, viz., the Dodo, Didus ineptus, of 

 Mauritius ; the White Dodo, Didus borbonicus, of Réunion ; 

 and lastly, the Solitaire, Pezophaps solitarius, of Rodriguez. 



