544 
president’s address. 
sub-region, and formerly known as the “ Pigeon Hollandais,” from 
its colours — red, blue, and white — being those of the Dutch flag. 
It must have been common enough, once on a time, according to 
all accounts ; but I am not aware that at present more than three 
or four examples of its skin remain, and the only one of these in 
Britain is in the Museum of Science and Art at Edinburgh. 
It doubtless still existed at the beginning of the present 
century, but we cannot do more than suppose that its extinction 
was accomplished by the year 1830, or perhaps even sooner. 
Another lost bird was a very large Parrot, as proved by bones 
found in the peat of the Mare aux Songes, a marsh which has 
furnished so many remains of the Dodo that Ave are now acquainted 
AV'ith almost the entire osteology of the bird. The portions of this 
Parrot’s skeleton as yet found have been only sufficient to indicate 
to Professor Alplionse Milne-Edwards the natural affinities of the 
form ; but most fortunately an outline sketch of the bird’s appear- 
ance, made by one ivlio was obviously a good draughtsman, still 
exists in Holland, and shows that it possessed a large crest, and 
had, as seems likely, ivings so short as to render it incapable of 
flight. Bones' of a large species of Coot, now extinct, the sole 
evidence of its existence, and of a still more curious form, determined 
by Professor Milne-Edwards also to belong to the Rullidcb have 
likewise been recovered from the same peat. This last form is one 
of considerable interest, because no one can look at the long curved 
bill which it possessed without recognizing in it the “ Poule rouge 
a bee de Becasse ” mentioned by one of the early voyagers, and also 
the strange bird depicted by a painter at Vienna, probably from 
a living example in the menagerie there, in a figure which has 
been beautifully reproduced by the late Herr von Frauen feld. 
Moreover we have its likeness in a sketch by the same Dutch 
draughtsman as preserved to us the representation of the large 
Parrot, so that of this bird — Aplmnaxderijx — we can form a very 
fair conception, though it is out of our power to say Avheu it ceased 
to exist. 
* This marsh, and a small one in the district of Flacq, are to the best of 
my knowledge the only places in which the Dodo’s bones have been found. 
