38 
SUPPLEMENT IIL. 
MEMOIR 
ON THE 
EXTINCT WINGLESS GROUND-DOVE, OR SOLITAIRE 
(PEZOPHAPS SOLITARIA, Strickland). 
SINCE the preceding ‘ Supplement’ was printed off, osseous remains collected in the 
Island of Rodriguez during the “ ‘Transit-of-Venus Expedition,” and now in the 
British Museum, have supplied materials for the articulation of the skeletons of both 
the large and small examples of the Solitaire (Pl, 1V.). 
Both varieties being extinct, their relation to sex cannot be anatomically deter- 
mined. The affinity of the Doves (Columbacew, Gemitores) to the Rasores, with the 
combative habit and carpal weapon of the larger variety (ib. fig. 1, 1), lead me to refer 
it to the male sex. 
In the skeleton of both male (Pl. IV. fig. 1) and female (ib. fig. 2) Pezophaps, the 
number of cervical vertebre is 12, that of the dorsal 6, a 7th free-rib-bearing vertebra 
being made “ sacral” by ankylosis with the rest of that coalesced group of bones. 
So much of the vertebral formula thus accords with that of Didunculus!. Asin that 
dove, also, the three middle dorsal vertebree (third, fourth, and fifth) have coalesced, 
and their square truncate spines form a strong bony crest. Four pairs of ribs are con- 
nected, by ossified heemapophyses, with the sternum; and this bone deviates mainly 
from the columbaceous type by the minor development of the keel, in relation to the 
atrophy of the chief muscles of flight. 
Sixteen coalesced vertebre constitute the sacrum of Pezophaps, as of Didus; and 
seven free vertebrae beyond the pelvis support the tail-feathers. Thus the vertebral 
formula of Pezophaps is :— 
C. 12, D. 6, S. 16, Cd. 7, = 41. 
‘There is one free-rib-bearing vertebra less, and one sternal rib less, than in Didus; and 
this difference accords with the larger proportional trunk of the heavier Ground-Dove 
of the Mauritian island. 
‘ See the figure of the skeleton of the didiform species of the Samoan Isles in my * Memoir on the Dodo.’ 4to. 
1866, pl, iii. fig. 2, 
