MESSES. A. AND E. NEWTON ON THE OSTEOLOGY OE THE SOLITAIEE. 329 
In addition to these eighteen specimens we are informed that in 1860 or 1861 a tibia, 
the shaft of a tarso-metatarsal, and some fragments of the shaft of a femur, all of which 
belonged to the Solitaire, were sent to Professor Owen by M. Bouton of the Museum at 
Mauritius ; but the fate of these specimens is unknown to us. 
Thus up to the year last mentioned not more than twenty-one specimens, of which 
many were duplicates, of the bones of the Solitaire had been brought to the notice of 
naturalists. They included portions of the cranium and sternum, the humerus, the 
femur, tibia, and tarso-metatarsal ; but the portions of the cranium and sternum, and the 
only perfect humerus, all of which were in France, were so much encrusted with stalag- 
mite that their characters were in some parts wholly obscured. 
In November 1864 one of the authors of this paper visited Rodriguez*, and near the 
entrance of a cave on the south-west side of that island he picked up two bones, a perfect 
left tarso-metatarsal and the shaft of a left humerus. About the same time Captain 
Barclay found a third bone, a femur. These were sent to England, and described and 
figured f under the provisional name of “ Didus nazarenus, Bartlett,” the describer 
having fallen into the same mistake as that naturalist and Strickland had already done. 
Meanwhile Mr. George Jenner, the magistrate of Rodriguez, was urged to make a 
more thorough search for further remains of the Solitaire in the localities whence the 
specimens last mentioned had been found. 
Accordingly, ou the 1st August 1865, a box from this gentleman reached one of the 
authors at Mauritius. It was found to contain upwards of eighty-one specimens of 
bones, belonging to at least sixteen individuals. Among these bones were a portion of 
the coracoid, examples of the ulna, radius, and fibula, portions of the pelvis and one of 
the digital phalanges, all of which had been previously unknown. But, more than this, 
from a series so large it became at once plain, by the presence of many specimens of in- 
termediate size, that the theory of the existence in the island of Rodriguez of two 
species of Solitaire (originated by Mr. Bartlett, afterwards adopted with a modification 
by Strickland, and followed subsequently by one of the present authors in describing 
the results of the previous “ find”) became untenable, and this fact was declared when 
a few months later the specimens arrived in England, and were exhibited at a meeting 
of the Zoological Society^. 
Immediately on tidings of this very important discovery being made known in this 
country §, the British Association for the Advancement of Science, then assembled at 
Birmingham, at the instance of Mr. P. L. Sclater, appointed a Committee to assist 
one of the present authors in his researches into the Didine Birds of the Mascarene 
Islands, and placed a handsome sum of money at his disposal for that purpose. Where- 
upon Mr. Jenner was requested to order a new examination of the more promising caves 
* Ibis, 1865, pp. 146-154. + Proe. Zool. Soc. 1865, pp. 199-201, pi. viii. 
t Ibid. pp. 715-718. 
§ Eeport of the Thirty-fifth Meeting of the British Association ; Notices and Abstracts of Miscellaneous Com- 
munications to the Sections, p. 92. 
MDCCCLXIX. 2 Y 
