145 
of Dodos ’ Remains in Mauritius. 
century. Bones of Deer, Pigs, and Monkeys * were also dis¬ 
covered. The Deer’s bones only were found in juxtaposition, 
so as to render it probable that the animal had died on the spot 
in which they were found. 
All the Dodos’ beaks wanted the horny tip which clothed 
them in their original state. Several of them were larger than 
that represented in the plate in Strickland’s work. 
Not a single bone of the phalanges has been found, although 
very diligent search has been made for them. It is possible that, 
if the marsh in which the bones were discovered could be laid 
altogether dry, they might be found; but it would be a very 
tedious and costly work to drain off the water, even in the dry 
season, as springs rise in it. 
The Mare aux Songes comprises an area of four or five acres. 
It is about a quarter of a mile from the sea, from which it is se¬ 
parated by low sandhills and basaltic rocks. It was originally a 
ravine, the bottom of which consisted, like that of most ravines 
in this country, of masses of basalt varying in weight from a 
few pounds to several tons. It receives the drainage of about 
two hundred acres, inclining towards it by a gentle slope. In 
the course of ages the interstices between these masses of basalt 
have been filled up by alluvium. A luxuriant growth of fern, 
sedge, and flags has spread from the borders over the deeper parts 
of the marsh, forming a mass sufficiently compact to allow of a 
person’s walking across it. This covering, by preserving any¬ 
thing beneath it from the action of the atmosphere, is probably 
a principal cause of the perfect state of preservation in which 
the bones under it were found. 
The Mare aux Songes and the lands around it were covered 
with thick forests at the beginning of the present century : now 
not a tree remains. From its sheltered position and the peren¬ 
nial springs which flow in it, it must have afforded a suitable 
* [In a a Brief] Notice of the Fauna of Mauritius” prefixed to ( The 
Mauritius Register’ for 1859 (p. xliv), it is stated that these Monkeys 
were 11 introduced by the Portuguese from Ceylonhut a specimen sent 
home in 1861, by Mr. E. Newton, was identified by Mr. Sclater with 
Macacus radiatus of India, a species which is replaced in Ceylon by M. 
pileatus .— Ed.] 
N.S.-VOL. II. 
L 
