12 
NATURAL HISTORY. 
observers contradict this last report, and assert that its 
flesh is good and wholesome eating. It is a simple bird 
and is very easily taken. Three or tour dodos are enough 
to dine an hundred men. 
The Solitary, and the Nazarene. The first of 
these is a large bird, which inhabits the Isle of Roderiqne, 
and receives its name from its solitary habits, scarcely more 
than two being ever found together. The male is said to 
weigh sometimes forty-five pounds. It has some relation 
to the turkey, but its bill is more bent, and it stands higher 
on its legs than that bird. The colour of its plumage is 
grey and brown mixed, and it has scarcely any tail. The 
wings are too short for flight, and the bone of the pinion 
swells out into a kind of round knob. The females are 
sometimes covered with light yellow feathers, and they 
have also a widow’s peak above the bill. They lay only 
one egg, and sit seven weeks. It is said that a stone is 
always found in the gizzard both of tins bird and the 
dodo ; it is, however, probably only of the same kind, and 
for the same purpose, as those which are found in all 
granivorous birds, and serves merely to prove them of that 
kind. They are hunted from March to September, and 
being then very fat, the young ones are much esteemed as 
food. 
The Nazarene is found at present in the Isle of France, 
though it evidently takes its name from having been ori- 
ginally a native of the Isle of Nazareth. It is larger than 
the swan, with the bill bent a little downwards, '’instead 
of feathers, it is covered with black down; but the wings 
are feathered, and there are some frizzled feathers on the 
rump. The legs are scaly, with three toes to each foot. 
The female lays but one egg. 
Both these last mentioned birds have much affinity with 
the dodo, if indeed they beany more than simple varieties. 
Of rapacious Birds 
T h e Golden Eagle is the largestand noblestof all those 
birds that have received the name of eagle. The length of 
the female is three feet and a half; the extent of its wimrs 
eight and a half; it weighs from sixteen to eighteen pounds; 
but the male seldom weighs more than twelve pounds.* 
Its bill is three inches long, and of a deep blue ; and the 
Among the birds of prey the female is generally larger than the male. 
