XXX 
Introduction 
Dubois enumerates at some length in detail. Bellanger 
de Lespinay tells us: ‘ There is besides such a large 
quantity of birds that it is surprising and difficult to 
believe, for they do not fly away; they kill them by 
blows of a stick. These sorts of birds are parrots, of 
which there are three or four kinds or species ; turtles, 
huppes , pigeons, etc.’ Like the Solitaire and the Oiseau 
bleu , the largest species of these parrots and the huppes 
or Callendres have likewise become extinct. Professor 
Newton writes :— 
‘Reunion, also, once had other birds now lost, and so had 
Rodriguez. In the former, a somewhat abnormal Starling, 
Fregilupus , existed until some forty years ago , 1 and its skin and 
skeleton are among the treasures of three or four museums . 2 
Perhaps also there were other Ralline birds, but the evidence 
on this head is inconclusive.’ 
One of the handsomest of the extinct parrots which 
were so numerous and tame in the days of Herbert and 
Dubois was that one which is figured by Daubenton in 
his Planches Enluminees (No. 215, Perruche de Tile de 
Bourbon—here reproduced), and described by Buffon 3 as 
‘ La Perruche a double collier, Psittaca Borbonica torquata 
(. Histoire Naturelle. Redige par Sonnini. 3rd Vol. 63, 
1 Professor Alphonse Milne-Edwards and M. Oustalet, in their recent notice 
on certain extinct birds, mention that Levaillant heard from an inhabitant of 
Bourbon that this species was found in great numbers at Bourbon, where it 
caused damage to the coffee-trees. Four living specimens were taken to 
Mauritius in 1835 and a single individual was shot at Savane (in Mauritius) 
as late as 1837. These authorities consider the ‘Huppes ou Callendres’ 
mentioned by Dubois to be evidently ‘ des Fregilupus. ’ The famous speci¬ 
men described by Gueneau de Montbeillard as Huppe noire et blanche du 
Cap de Bonne-Esptrance and figured by Daubenton, Tableau des Planches 
Enluminees , 1783, p. 43, is still in the Museum at Paris, and is again figured 
in the magnificent Volume Commemoratif published in 1894. P&fe post , 
Appendix. 2 Vide Appendix C. 
3 ‘ Brisson’s original description was in 1760 ( Ornithologie , iv. p. 328). He 
called the bird Psittaca Borbonica torquata. “ La Perruche a double collier” 
was Buffon’s name for it in 1779 {Hist. Nat. des Ois., vi. p. 143); and subse¬ 
quently Sonnini merged the two names in his edition of Buffon.’ (MS. note 
by Professor Newton.) 
