Part 64

Habitat: Island of Bourbon or Réunion.

Only known from the above-mentioned descriptions and two drawings. No specimens existing.

This bird became extinct between the years 1735 and 1801, because in the latter year Monsieur Bory St. Vincent made his scientific survey of the Island, and no such bird existed then; while we know that Monsieur de la Bourdonnaye, who was governor of the Mascarene Islands from 1735 to 1746, sent one alive to one of the directors of the French East Indian Company. Of this, the second living specimen brought to Europe, we unfortunately have neither drawing nor history.

Explanation of Plates.

Plate 25.

Drawing of White Dodo from Pierre Witthoos' picture, the bill and tail being reconstructed from the model of the common Dodo.

Plate 25 (a).

Fig. 5. Outline of figure of White Dodo in the picture by Pieter Witthoos circa 1670 vide supra.

Fig. 8. Outline of Woodcut in Zaagman's edition of Bontekoe van Hoorn, 1646.

Fig. 7. Outline of figure of White Dodo in an edition of Plinius Secundus about 1643 but without date.

Fig. 4. Outline of Dr. H. Schlegel's reconstruction of the Réunion Dodo.

Plate 25 (b).

Drawing from description of the Sieur D.B. (Dubois), 1674.

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PEZOPHAPS STRICKLAND & MELVILLE.

Skull with a moderate rostrum, slightly hooked, and the nasal and maxillary processes of the praemaxillae diverging anteriorly; the frontal region flat with but little cancellous tissue. Coracoid stout. Manus armed with an ossified tuberosity. Neck and feet long. Delto-pectoral crest of humerus aborted.

This genus connects Didus with the Columbidae. The male is much larger than the female.

PEZOPHAPS SOLITARIUS (GM.)

THE SOLITAIRE.

(PLATE 23, 25A, FIGS. 1, 2, 3.)

Solitaire Leguat, Voy. deux iles désertes Ind. Or. I pp. 98. 102 (1708).

Didus solitarius Gmelin, S. N. I p. 728, n. 2 (1788).

Pezophaps solitaria Strickland, the Dodo, &c., p. 46 (1848).

Didus nazarenus Bartl. (nec. Gmel.), P. Z. S. 1851, p. 284, pl. XLV.

Pezophaps minor Strickland, Contr. to Orn. 1852, p. 19 (?).

This bird was first made known by Leguat in 1708, but some confusion seems to have arisen, owing to his applying the same name to them as the Sieur D.B. (Dubois) gave to the Bourbon Dodo in 1674. This is the original description:--

"The feathers of the males are of a brown-grey colour, the feet and beak are like a turkey's, but a little more crooked. They have scarce any tail, but their hind part covered with feathers is roundish, like the crupper of a hare. They are taller than turkeys. Their neck is straight, and a little longer in proportion than a turkey's when it lifts up his head. Its eye is black and lively, and its head without comb on cop. They never fly, their wings are too little to support the weight of their bodies; they serve only to beat themselves and flutter when they call one another. They will whirl about for twenty or thirty times together on the same side during the space of 4 or 5 minutes. The motions of their wings make then a noise very like that of a rattle, and one may hear it two hundred paces off. The bone of their {178} wings grows greater towards the extremity, and forms a little round mass under the feathers as big as a musket ball. That and its beak are the chief defences of this bird. 'Tis very hard to catch in the woods, but easy in open places, because we run faster than they, and sometimes we approach them without much trouble. From March to September they are very fat, and taste admirably well, especially while they are young, some of the males weigh 45 pounds. The females are wonderfully beautiful, some fair, some brown. I call them fair, because they are the colour of fair hair; they have a sort of peak like a widow's, upon their breasts, which is of a dun colour. No one feather is straggling from the other all over their bodies, they being very careful to adjust themselves, and make them all even with their beaks. The feathers on their thighs are round like shells at the end, and being there very thick, have an agreeable effect. They have two risings on their craws, and the feathers are whiter there than the rest, which livelily represents the fine neck of a beautiful woman. They walk with so much stateliness and good grace that one cannot help admiring them and loving them, by which means their fine mien often saves their lives."

The unfortunate Solitaires, owing to the depredations by the pigs and monkeys introduced by the settlers, and the unceasing slaughter by the latter, became extinct between the years 1760 and 1780.