Mr. Telfair having thus procured from Rodriguez a collection of bones, presented one
portion of them to the Zoological Society of London, and another to the Andersonian Museum
at Glasgow.
Mr. G. C. Cuninghame, of Port Louis, Mauritius, having been recently applied to by
Sir W. C. Trevelyan, made several enquiries as to the locality above indicated, and gives a
somewhat different account:—
“ I learn that the hones removed [in 1831] were found by digging in a place apparently hollowed
out by the action of running water under a mass of rock on the side of a narrow chasm or ravine;
that the floor of the cavity is of dark coloured earth, sloping sharply down to its mouth, near which,
but turn considerably below'the level of the cavity, a small stream runs at present.”
In October 1845, Capt. Kelly, of H.M.S. Conway, made, at Mr. Cuninghame’s request,
a search for the locality thus indicated. He was unsuccessful in finding the precise spot,
but examined two caverns, one of which at the base of a cliff, contained numerous and beautiful
stalactites; the other, which he was unable fully to explore for want of a ladder, is in
a level piece of ground. The floor of both caves, where not covered with stalagmite, is a fine
red mould, which I strongly recommend to the attention of those who may hereafter have
the happiness of digging for bones in Rodriguez.
The bones which were sent to Paris were exhibited in 1830 by Cuvier to the Academy
of Sciences (Ann. des. Sc. Nat. vol. xxi.; Revue Sept. 103, 104, 109, 110; Bull. Sc. Nat.
vol. xxii. p. 122; Ed. Joum. Nat. Sc. vol. in. p. 30), but no detailed account of them has yet
been made public. Being, anxious to compare them with the remains of the Dodo which we
'possess at Oxford, I applied to M. de Blainville to permit these bones to be brought to
England. He at once gave his consent, and commissioned Professor Milne Edwards to
bring them with him to the meeting of the British Association at Oxford in June 1847r
an act of liberality which has enabled Dr. Melville and myself to make the desired comparison.
We were further permitted, by the kindness of the Trustees of the Andersonian Museum
at Glasgow, to exhibit to the Association the bones from Rodriguez presented to that institution
by the late Mr. Telfair. These gentlemen entrusted the relics to Sir W. Jardine, and
allowed him not only to diffuse, by means of plaster casts, the information they convey, but to
bring with him the bones themselves to the Meeting.
The bones which were sent by Mr. Telfair in 1833 to the Zoological Society, have met
with some unfortunate fate. Three or four years ago, Mr. Eraser, the late Curator of that
Society, made at my request a diligent search for these specimens, but all his endeavours to
find them were fruitless. Among the many treasures which have been presented to the Society
during the last twenty years, and which for want of space are still buried in vaults and outhouses,
he found the identical box sent by Mr. Telfair; but, alas! the bones of the Solitaire,
apterous as it was, had flown away, and the onlybdnes that remained belonged to Tortoisea ’i
We are again, therefore, obliged to fall back upon historical records in place of ocular
evidence. In the Proceedings of the Zoological Society for March 12, 1833, p. 32, we
read that “ the bones procured [in itodriguez] for Mr. Telfair were laid on the table. They
include, with numerous bones of the extremities of one or more large species of Tortoise,
several bones of the hinder extremity of a large bird, and the head of a humerus. With
reference to the metatarsal bone of the bird, which was long and strong, Dr. Grant pointed
out that it possessed articulating surfaces for four toes, three directed forwards, and one
backwards, as in the foot of the Dodo preserved in the British Museum, to which it was
also proportioned in its magnitude and form.”
In our attempts, therefore, to reconstruct the skeleton of the Solitaire, and to determine its
zoological affinities, our only data are the bones which the Curators of the Paris and Glasgow
collections have enabled us to bring into juxta-position. The bones of the supposed Solitaire
from the Paris Museum are five in number ;* viz., a femur, a tarso-metatarsal, a humerus,
the medial portion of a sternum, and a portion of the cranium. Unfortunately they are all
incrusted uniformly over with stalagmite, from -At to A of an inch in thickness, wliich prevents
all examination of the surface of the bones, or any minute description of their structure.
They nevertheless supply us with several important elements to guide us in reconstructing
the skeleton of this lost bird.
Erom the uniformity in the appearance and thickness of the incrustation, it appears
evident that these bones have all been obtained in one locality, probably in’some pool on the
floor of a cavem, exposed to the dripping of water containing carbonate of lime. And from
the fact that no duplicate bones, occur amongst them, and from their apparent agreement in
proportionate size, we have a right to assume that they are portions of the skeleton of the
same individual. (See Plates XIII. and XIV.)
.The Glasgow series of bones are all portions of the hinder extremity, and consist of
three femora, a tibia, and two tarso-metatarsal bones. Their appearance, as well as their
history, proves them to have been obtained under different circumstances from those last
mentioned. They still contain nearly the whole of their animal matter, present a glossy
surface, considerable specific gravity, and are neither changed in colour nor incrusted with
extraneous matter. They have the appearance of having been obtained from a reddish soil
on the floor of some dry cave, where they have been protected from the changes of weather
and from the action of mineral waters.
The only bones which are common to the Paris and Glasgow series are the femur
(Plate XIV.) and the tarso-metatarsal. (Plate XV.) On comparing these together, they
present every indication of specific identity. The tarso-metatarsal at Paris is of the same form
and dimensions (allowing for the thickness of the incrusting matter) as the pair at Glasgow.
And the Parisian femur, though apparently much larger, owing to the thickness of its stalag-
mitic coating, is yet reducible to the same dimensions as the largest of the three Andersonian
femora. Erom this, and from the anatomical relations of the bones to each other, it appears
certain that these two collections of bones belong to one and the same species of bifd. And
1 There ia a sixth hone in the collection, but it belongs, not to the Solitaire, but to a Tortoise.