830 MESSES. A. AND E. NEWTON ON THE OSTEOLOGY OE THE SOLITAIRE. 
in Rodriguez *. Owing to the scarcity of labourers in that island and the irregularity 
of communication between it and Mauritius, nearly a year passed before anything 
could be done, and at last it was found necessary to send a small band of coolies 
to Rodriguez for the express purpose of digging in the caves theref. These men 
were dispatched in August 1866 and returned to Mauritius in about two months, 
Mr. Tenner sending with them the results of their labour, consisting of nearly 2000 
bones or fragments of bones of the Solitaire, with a few others belonging to various 
animals. Two facts, however, it must be said are greatly to be regretted in connexion 
with this expedition. It had been found impossible to put the coolies employed under 
an intelligent superintendent, who could have carefully noted down all the circumstances 
under which the bones were found * and the report which Mr. Tenner was requested to 
draw up, giving an account of the caves visited and so forth, has unfortunately never 
reached us $. Consequently nothing more is known of the specimens described in the 
present paper than that they were found in caves in the island of Rodriguez, but it is 
impossible for us to say how long they have been there buried §. 
This much, byway of historical statement, is due to those who have before laboured upon 
the subject of which we are now about to treat as well as to those who have aided us in our 
attempt to recover the remains of this lost form. A few more words only are necessary 
before we begin to describe, as best we can, the osteology of the Solitaire of Rodriguez. 
First, we have to remark that while the enormously large series of specimens at our 
disposal has undoubtedly enabled us to form and declare certain opinions with greater 
confidence than we should otherwise have felt at liberty to do, we confess to having been 
in some respects much embarrassed by the wealth of our materials. It is not a very 
difficult task to describe in great detail a single skeleton, but it is not easy to draw up a 
description which, while being minute and diagnostic, shall yet fit some fifty or more 
examples. There does not seem to be a single bone in the skeleton of Pezqphaps soli- 
taries which is not liable to greater or less individual variation of some kind or other. 
This variation in point of absolute size, in which of course it is most easily recognizable, 
induced Mr. Bartlett, Strickland, and one of ourselves (as has been already stated) 
into a serious error. But the individual variation is not at all confined to absolute size ; 
it extends to the relative proportion of divers parts of the bones, to processes or depres- 
sions upon them such as are commonly held to be specifically characteristic, so that it 
is often utterly impossible to predicate any definite limits of individual modification. 
* We must by no means omit to mention bere that the results of Mr. George Clark’s fortunate discovery 
of bones of the true Dodo recounted by him in ‘ The Ibis’ (1866, pp. 141-146), though not known in England 
till some months after the grant of the British Association had been voted, did much to inspirit those who were 
interested in the matter of the resurrection of the Solitaire of Bodriguez. 
f Report of the Thirty-sixth Meeting of the British Association, p. 402. 
t Trans. Roy. Soc. Maur. N. Ser. iii. pp. 31-38. 
§ Professor Steexsirxtp, and there cannot be a better authority, on seeing the bones found in 1865, recog- 
nized in some of them certain characters which he believed showed unfailingly that these birds had been eaten 
by men or dogs. No such characters are observable by us on the bones found in 1866;.. 
