146 Prof. Schlegel on some Extinct Gigantic Birds 
resort for birds of all kinds, and was probably a favourite abode 
of Dodos and marsh-birds. 
Aged persons who have passed their lives in the woods have 
assured me that there was formerly a sufficiency of wild fruits 
to maintain any number of birds large enough to eat them, and 
that there was such a succession of them as would have sufficed 
for the whole year. Among these fruits may be mentioned Ficus 
rubra , F. terebrata, and F. mauritiana, three or four species of 
ebony, the iron-wood, several species of Mimusops, Olea chryso- 
phylla and O. lancea , Calophyllum tatamahaka and C. spectabile , 
Mithridatea amplifolia , Terminalia mauritiana , Colophonia mau¬ 
ritiana, Tossinia mespiloides and T. revoluta; and I think it 
likely that the seeds of several species of Pandanus, notwith¬ 
standing their hardness, may have been eaten by birds whose 
digestive powers we may imagine to have been equal to those of 
the Ostrich. 
If the Dodo ate animal food, I know of nothing coexistent 
with it in Mauritius that could have afforded it any considerable 
supply, except snails, of which the woods which remain still 
contain vast numbers. 
I have opened diggings in several marshes which appeared to 
me likely receptacles for the relics of the Dodo, but I have not 
found a single bone except in the Mare aux Songes. Several 
gentlemen, witnesses of my success there, have made experi¬ 
ments in other places, but have obtained nothing. 
Having sent to Professor Owen and Mr. Alfred Newton bones 
of every kind that I have found, I do not think it necessary to 
enter into any description of them here, but I hope my commu¬ 
nication may still be found sufficiently interesting. 
Maliebourg, January 6, 1866. 
XIV.— On some Extinct Gigantic Birds of the Mascarene Islands. 
By H. Schlegel, Director of the National Museum of the 
Netherlands, F.M.Z.S., &c. &c. 
[The interesting events of the last few months, which nave 
done more to put us in possession of facts relating to the extinct 
birds of the Mascarene Islands than anything else that has 
