puksident’s addhess. 
545 
Tliat other birds of Mauritius are dwindling in numbers there is 
I think no doubt. Since my residence in the island, a law has 
been passed which affords them, I trust, some protection, and may 
possibly preserve them to future generations. Yet there is one 
which very nearly came to an end in my time, and though 
not quite e.xtinct in the island, I may just mention the circum- 
stances relating to it. This is a Swallow or Martin belonging to 
the genus Phedina, and is one of the few land-birds that is found 
both in Mauritius and in Reunion. In Mauritius it seems, so far 
as my experience goes, to have been always very local, and its 
numbers were so much reduced by a cyclone which ravaged tlie 
island between the 12th and 1 7th of February, 18G1, that 1 never 
afterwards saw but three or four from that time till my departure 
in 1878. 
If we go to Rodrigues, we find that extirpation has overcome a 
still larger proportion of birds. There is not only the “ Solitaire,” 
the large Diilino bird, taller than the real Dodo, of which Leguat 
has left us such a minute and wonderfully truthful account ; but 
tlie ciwes of the island have produced the bones of a small Owl, 
perhaps akin to that which now inhabits, but in very small 
numbers, one of the Seychelle Islands ; a large Parrot, nearly as 
big as the extinct short-winged Parrot of Mauritius ; a Dove, 
probably the species described by Leguat as having a slate-coloured 
plumage, and if so, most likely belonging to the genus yl/cc/orrt?n«<f, 
of which the finest species inhabited ^lauritius, as I before said ; 
a Ralline bird, also mentioned by the early voyagers as being 
attracted to any red substance, and certainly not very far removed 
from the JMauritian Aphanapteryx ; and a Xight-IIeron, with 
wdngs shorter than those of any existing species. ^loreover, there 
is still existing, but of the utmost mrity, a Parakeet, congeneric 
with that which still survives in Mauritius, and with that w’hich, 
as we read, formerly lived in Reunion. Of this Parakeet, mentioned 
by Leguat as being numerous, only two specimens have come into 
the hands of naturalists, and these were obtained at a considerable 
interval of time. Mr. Slater, the zoologist attached to the Transit 
of Venus Expedition, failed to procure a specimen, and though 
