Introduction 
xxix 
till the latter date at least. 5 But Mahe de La Bourdonnais 
made his first voyage, as a boy, to these seas in 1709. 
In 1713 he made a second voyage to the East Indies, 
in 1716-17 he made a voyage to the North Seas, and in 
1718 a fourth voyage to the Levant. In 1719 he 
voyaged again as a second lieutenant in the service of 
the French company to the East Indies; and in 1723, 
when first lieutenant, he performed a daring voyage in 
an open boat from the Isle of Bourbon to the Isle of 
France. In 1724 he was second captain in the Company’s 
service, and employed in the Indian Ocean. It is pos¬ 
sible, therefore, that the specimen of Solitaire was 
obtained during La Bourdonnais’ earlier voyages, some 
time before he became Governor of the Mascarene Islands. 
Of this white Bourbon Dodo it does not appear that 
a single relic has yet been handled by any naturalist. 1 
It is to be hoped, however, that ere long, when a sys¬ 
tematic search has been instituted for its remains, some 
fragments of this extinct species may reward the diligence 
and patience of the explorers. 2 All the writers who have 
described Isle Bourbon during the seventeenth century 
concur in their admiration of the other land birds, which 
1 4 But the Dodo is not the only member of its Family that has vanished. 
The little island which has successively borne the name of Mascaregnas, 
England’s Forest, Bourbon [lie Bonaparte ], and Reunion, and lies to the 
southward of Mauritius, had also an allied bird, now dead and gone. Of 
this not a relic has been handled by any naturalist. The latest description 
of it by Dubois is meagre in the extreme ; and though two figures—one by 
Bontekoe {circa 1670) and another by Pierre Witthoos {oh. 1693) have been 
thought to represent it ( Trans. Zool. Soc. vi. p. 373, pi. 62) their identifica¬ 
tion is but conjectural. Yet the existence of the bird is indubitable.’— 
Vide Dictionary of Birds, by Alfred Newton, pp. 216, 217, Article 
4 Extermination. 3 
2 4 Some years ago bones were found by a Creole at Possession and taken 
to the Cure, who blessed them and had them buried in the cemetery before 
they could be properly examined. It was thought that they might belong to 
an Oiseau de Nazareth {i.e. a Didine Bird), but the Cure either cannot or 
will not point out where they were buried. None of our mares have been 
searched, but it is only reasonable to suppose that remains would be found in 
them.’—C. W. Bennett, British Consul at Reunion, June 10, 1896, 
