XXII 
Introduction 
But it is not in connection with Madagascar that the 
exceptional interest of the Sieur Dubois’ little book is to 
be found. Of that great island, indeed, he saw little enough 
during the months when he lay prostrated and paralysed 
by the effects of malarial fever: whilst the historical facts 
are given with greater authority by Rennefort and other 
officials of De la Haye’s expedition. It is rather in 
his account of the remarkable fauna of the Isle Mascarenne, 
whither he was transported in order to regain his health, 
that the real value to science of his testimony is obtained 
by naturalists, desirous of investigating the geographical 
distribution of animals in this quarter of the world. 
The island, which has successively borne the names of 
Sta. Appollinia, Mascarenhas, Mascareigne or Mascarenne, 
Bourbon, Bonaparte, and now of Reunion, is the largest, 
and by far the loftiest, of the so-called Mascarene group 1 
in the Indian Ocean, about four hundred miles east of 
Madagascar, discovered at the beginning of the sixteenth 
century by the Portuguese. Each of the islands had its 
own peculiar fauna, largely consisting of species not found 
elsewhere, when the Dutch, who followed the Portuguese, 
first landed on Mauritius (the name these voyagers gave 
to this island), ninety miles north-east of Mascarenhas 
towards the end of the century. The explorers found the 
island stocked with large tortoises and strange birds, 
amongst which, notably conspicuous, some large fowls 
stalked, or rather waddled slowly about, which the Dutch¬ 
men called Walghvogels , or ‘ nauseous birds.’ A few years 
‘ materials ’ spoken of by the Sieur Dubois were utilised to manufacture this 
book— Voyage de Madagascar , connue aussi sous le nom de VIsle de St. Laurent , 
par M. de DE V. . . ., Commissaire Provicial de l’Artillerie de France. 
1 In Island Life , the author, Mr. Russel Wallace, uses the term Mascarene 
Islands ‘in an extended sense, to include all the islands near Madagascar 
which resemble it in the animal and vegetable productions.’ This must not 
convey an impression that the word ‘ Mascarene ’ is here used as an abbre¬ 
viated synonym of ‘ Madagascarene ’ Islands. (Vide Island Life , Part II., 
chap, xix., ‘The Madagascar Group,’ p. 399.) 
