Slater : Rodrigues, axd its Fauna. 



5 



18. Gt/ffis Candida ; a pure white tern. The loveliest bird, I think, 

 I ever saw — its plumage snow-white, with large black eye 

 and bill. It used to hover calmly within a yard of our 

 heads and inspect us, and we might have killed any number 

 with a stick. Some one, I forget whom, has cdled this bird 

 " a little fairy " — a very apt name, which just suits the 

 small size, great beauty, and perfect self-possession of this 

 charming little bird. 



19. AnoiUy tenuirodrii 



20. Anons slolidus 



two noddy terns. 



21. Puffimis cJiloi'orJiyncJiiis ; a black petrel, living in clefts of the 



rocks of a small island. Its noise, which it utters at night, 

 is something between a yell and a snore, which has a strange 

 and unearthly sound to a lonely stranger passing the island 

 in a boat. 



22. FJiceton fiavirodris ; the yellow-billed tropic bird, called by 



sailors " Bo's'en bird." 



23. Tregata minor ; the smaller Frigate bird. When this oird meets 



a tern or a booby coming home in the evening with a good 

 store of fish, it dashes at him like a falcon, till he drops his 

 fish, which is what the Frigate bird wants. 



24. Sula pkcator ] booby. Closely related to our gannet, or solan 



goose, and similar in habits and appearance. 



This is a list of the birds as at present existing. When I was in 

 Ptodrigues, however, there was another species in existence — a large 

 ringed parrakeet, of which only one specimen existed in collections — 

 a female. I was going to the caves one morning to my daily work, 

 with my Hindoos, and saw a large parrot with a longish tail, close to 

 me. Had I had my gun with me, I could easily have shot it. I 

 never saw it again, but I was able to report on my return that I had 

 seen a male of this bird, for I was sufficiently near to it to pronounce 

 on the sex. About a year after, a male was shot on the island and 

 brought to England by a gentlemen of Mauritius who was collecting 

 on the island, and now the bird, beyond doubt, is extinct. Rather a 

 curious experience, is it not, to have had an opportunity of seeing the 

 last bird of its kind, and to be pretty sure that it was the last ? 



Approaching the birds which have been far some time extinct, in 

 the first iDlace, the place of importance, we have the solitaire, a close 

 relation of the dodo, which was confined to Rodrigues, as the dodo was 



