152 
Prof. Schlegel on some Extinct Gigantic Birds 
interesting^, and he did not overlook the fact that “les os de ces 
tortues sont massifs, je veux dire qufils n’ont point de moelle.” 
His description of the pine-apple*, which he had never before 
seen, is very characteristic. Speaking of the rhinoceros f, he gives 
copies of five figures and criticizes the writers whose imagination 
led them to see several strange patterns on the hides of these 
animals. • That he made the drawings for his work himself and 
in loco appears from his own expression J and from the nature of 
the case. Those which he says were communicated to him con¬ 
trast not a little with his own by their imperfection or strange¬ 
ness, as may be seen, for example, in the figure of a lizard from 
Gilolo, apparently a species of Gekko§. 
We deem it superfluous to expatiate further on the numerous 
other observations which Leguat made on various animals and 
plants. What we have stated is sufficient to show that we 
have to deal with a man very different from the thousands or 
hundreds of thousands who have travelled, and in these days yet 
travel, in foreign countries for no other purpose than to find a 
better position than in their own land, to acquire riches in the 
shortest possible time, and who only observe surrounding 
natural objects so far as they can be of use to their material 
welfare. We have here before us one of the few men who have 
loved nature for itself and not for their own interest—one who, 
by a longer stay in the magnificent Mascarene Islands, would 
doubtless have put a stop to the work of annihilation carried on 
by his less-refined shipmates—since, speaking of the females of 
the Solitaire of Rodriguez, he could say “elles marchent avec 
tant de fierte et de bonne grace tout ensemble, qu’on ne peut 
s’empecher de les admirer et de les aimer; de sorte que souvent 
leur bonne mine leur a sauve la vie” ||. 
That Leguat wrote his observations not after his return, but 
on the spot itself, appears not only from the nature of the case, 
but also from the statements above cited respecting the publi¬ 
cation of his journal. Moreover he mentions also that on the 
islands where he lived he left “ memoriaux ” enclosed in bottles— 
at Mauritius in a hole of the rock whither he was banished, at 
* Op. cit. ii. p. 65. t Ibid. ii. p. 146. f Ibid. i. p. 64. 
§ Ibid. ii. p. 97. J| Ibid. i. pp. 99, 100. 
