of his own doings in general, and of shed tears without crying, and refuse all this species in particular. manner of meat till they die."—(P. 71.) "Of all the birds in the island, the most remarkable is that which goes by the name of the Solitary, because it is very seldom seen in company, though there are abundance of them. The feathers of the male 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 horse: they are taller than turkeys; their neck is straight, and a little longer in proportion than a turkey's, when it lifts up its head. Its eye is black and lively, and its head without coinb or cap. They never fly; their wings are too little to support the weight of their bodies; they serve only to beat themselves, and to flutter when they call one another. They will whirl about for twenty or thirty times together on the same side, during the space of four or five minutes. The motion of their wings makes then a noise very much like that of a rattle, and one may hear it two hundred paces off. The bone of their wing 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 defence of this bird. 'Tis very hard to catch it in the woods, but easier in open places, because we run faster than they, and sometimes we approach them without much trouble. From March to September they are extremely fat, and taste admirably well, especially while they are young; some of the males weigh forty-five pounds. "The females," continues our enamoured author," are wonderfully beautiful, some fair, some brown,-I call them fair, because they are of the colour of fair hair. They have a sort of peak like a widow's upon their beak, 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 crops, and the feathers are whiter there than the rest, which lively represents the fair neck of a beautiful woman. They walk with so much stateliness and good grace that one cannot help admiring and loving them; by which means their fine mien often saves their lives. Though these birds will sometimes very familiarly come up near enough to one, when we do not run after them, yet they will never grow tame. As soon as they are caught, they Their natural food is the fruit of á species of plantain. When these birds are about to build, they select a clean place, and then gather together a quantity of palm leaves, which they heap up about a foot and a half high, and there they sit. They never lay but one egg, which greatly exceeds that of a goose. Some days after the young one has left her nest, a company of thirty or forty grown-up birds brings another young one to it; and the new-fledged bird, with its father and mother, joining with the band, they all march away to some by place. Leguat, "and found that afterwards the "We frequently followed them," says old ones went each their way alone, or in couples, and left the two young ones together, and this we called a marriage. This peculiarity has something in it which looks a little fabulous; nevertheless what I say is sincere truth, and what I have more than once observed with care and pleasure." Leguat gives a figure of this singular bird, which in his plate has somewhat of the air and aspect of a Christmas goose, although, of course, it wants the web-feet. Its neck and legs are proportionally longer than those parts of the Dodo, and give it more of a struthious appearance; but the existing osteological evidence is sufficient to show that it was closely allied to that bird, and shared with it in some peculiar affinities to the pigeon tribe. It is curious that, although Rodriguez is a British settletion regarding it beyond what is to be ment, we have scarcely any informafound in the work last quoted, and all that we have since learned of the Solitary is that it has become extinct. Of late years Mr. Telfair made inquiries of one of the colonists, who assured him that no such bird now existed on the island; and the same negative result was obtained by Mr. Higgins, a Liverpool gentleman, who, after suffering shipwreck on Rodri guez, resided there for a couple of months. As far back as 1789, some bones incrusted by a stalagmite, and erroneously supposed to belong to the Dodo, were found in a cave in Rodriguez by a M. Labistour. They after wards found their way to Paris, where they may still be seen. We are in formed (Proceedings of the Zoological Society, Part I. p. 31) that Col. Dawkins recently visited these caverns, and dug without finding anything but a small bone. But M. Eudes succeeded in disinterring various bones, among others those of a large species of bird no longer found alive upon the island. He adds, that the Dutch, who first landed at Rodriguez, left cats there to destroy the rats, which annoyed them. These cats are now so numerous as to prove very destructive to the poultry, and he thinks it probable that these feline wanderers may have extirpated the bird in question, by devouring the young ones as soon as they were hatched, a destruction which may have been effected even before the island became inhabited by the human Be that as it may, Mr. Telfair race. sent collections of the bones to this country, one of which may be seen in the museum of the Andersonian Institution, Glasgow. Mr. Strickland mourns over the loss or disappearance of those transmitted to the Zoological Society of London. We have been informed within these few days that like the head of the Danish Dodo, they have been rediscovered, lying in a stable or other outhouse, in the vicinity of the museum of that Society, Both the Glasgow specimens, and those in Paris, have been carefully examined and compared by Mr. Strickland, and their Columbine characters are minutely described by his skilful and accurate coadjutor, Dr. Melville, in the second portion of his work. Mr. S. very properly regards certain peculiarities, alluded to by Leguat, such as the feeding on dates or plantains, as confirmatory of his view of the natural affinities already mentioned. So much for the Solitaire of Rodriguez and its affinities.* A singular fact, however, remains to be yet attended to in this insular group. The volcanic island of Bourbon seems also to have contained brevi-pennate birds, whose inability to fly has likewise led to their extinction. This island, which lies about a hundred miles south-west of Mauritius, was discovered contemporaneously by Pedra de Mascaregnas, in the sixteenth century. The earliest notice which concerns our present inquiry, is by Captain Castleton, who visited Bourbon in 1613. In the narrative, as given by Purchas, we read as fol lows: "There is store of land-fowl, both small and great, plentie of doves, great parrats, and suchlike, and a great fowl of the bignesse of a turkie, very fat, and beeing white, and in a manner tame; and so short-winged that they cannot flie, so are all other fowles, as having not been troubled nor feared with shot. Our men did beat them down with sticks and stones."-(Ed. 1625, vol. i. p. 381.) Bontekoe van Hoorn, a Dutch voyager, spent twenty-one days in Bourbon in 1618, and found the island to abound in pigeons, parrots, and other species, among which "there were also Dod-eersen, which have small wings; and so far from being able to fly, they were so fat that they could scarcely walk, and when they tried to run, they dragged their under side along the ground." There is no reason to suppose that these birds were actual Dodos, of the existence of which in Bourbon there is not the slightest proof. That Bontekoe's account was compiled from recollection rather than from any journal written at the time, is almost certain from this tragical fact, that his ship was afterwards blown up, and he himself was The companions of Vasco de Gama had, at an earlier period, applied the name of Solitaires to certain birds found in an island near the Cape of Good Hope; but these must not be confounded with those of the Didine group above referred to. They were, in fact, penguins, and their wings were somewhat vaguely compared to those of bats, by reason of the peculiar scaly or undeveloped state of the feathers in these birds. Dr. Hamel has shown that the term Solitaires, as employed by the Portuguese sailors, was a corruption of sotilicairos, an alleged Hottentot word, of which we do not profess to know the meaning, being rather rusted in that tongue. We know, however, that penguins are particularly gregarions, and, therefore, by no means solitary, although they may be extremely sotilicairious for anything we can say to the contrary. the sole survivor. There is no likelihood that he preserved his papers any more than his portmanteau, and he no doubt wrote from a remembrance of a large brevipennate bird, whose indolent and unfearing tameness rendered it an easy prey. Knowing that a bird of a somewhat similar nature inhabited the neighbouring island, he took it for the same, and called it Dodo, by a corresponding term. A Frenchman of the name of Carré visited Bourbon in 1668, and in his Voyages des Indes Orientales, he states as follows: "I have seen a kind of bird which I have not found elsewhere; it is that which the inhabitants call the oiseau so litaire, for in fact it loves solitude, and only frequents the most secluded places. One never sees two or more of them together, they are always alone. It is not unlike a turkey, were it not that its legs are longer. The beauty of its plumage is delightful to behold. The flesh is exquisite; it forms one of the best dishes in this country, and might form a dainty at our tables. We wished to keep two of these birds to send to France and present them to his Majesty, but, as soon as they were on board ship, they died of melancholy, having refused to eat or drink."(Vol. i. p. 12.) Almost immediately after M. Carré's visit, a French colony was sent from Madagascar to Bourbon, under the superintendence of M. de la Haye. A certain Sieur D. B. (for this is all that is known of his name or desig nation) was one of the party, and has left a narrative of the expedition in an unpublished journal, acquired by Mr. Telfair, and presented by him to the Zoological Society of London. Besides confirming the accounts given by preceding writers, this unknown author affords a conclusive proof that a second species of the same group inhabited the Island of Bourbon. We are indebted to Mr. Strickland for the original passages and the following translation: There is proof that one or other of these singular and now unknown till towards the middle of the last birds existed in Bourbon, at least century. M. Billiard, who resided there between 1817 and 1820, states (in his Voyages aux Colonies Orienlales) that, at the time of the first colonization of the island, "the woods were filled with birds which were not alarmed at the approach of man. Among them was the Dodo or Solitaire, still to be seen in the time of M. de la which was pursued on foot: they were Bourdonnaye, who sent a specimen, as a curiosity, to one of the directors of the company." As the gentleman last named was governor of the Isles of France and Bourbon from 1735 to 1746, these birds, Mr. Strickland observes, must have survived to the forlatter date at least. But when M. mer, and may have continued to the Bory St. Vincent made a careful survey of the island in 1801, no such species were to be found. The deshows that they were not genuine scription of the bill and plumage Dodos, but merely entitled to be classed among their kindred. Not a vestige of their remains is in the hands of naturalists, either in this or any other country. We have now finished, under Mr. Strickland's guidance, our exposition of this curious group. The restricto islands of so small a size, is certion, at any time, of such large birds tainly singular. We cannot, howgeological changes these islands may ever, say what peculiar and unknown have undergone, by which their extent has been diminished, or their inter-connexion destroyed. Volcanic groups, such as those in question, are no doubt generally of less ancient origin than most others; but it is by no means unlikely that these islands of Rodriguez, Bourbon, and Mauritius, may once have formed a united group, or much more expanded mass of terra firma than they now exhibit; and that, by their partial submergence and separation, the dominions of the Dodo and its kindred have, like those of many other heavy chieftains of high degree, been greatly diminished and laid low. But into this question of ancient boundaries we cannot now enter. How pleasant, on some resplendent summer evening, in such a delicious clime as that of the Mauritius, the sun slowly sinking amid a gorgeous blaze of light, and gilding in green and gold the spreading summits of the towering palms,-the murmuring sea sending its refreshing vesper-breathings through all the "pillared shades" which stretch along that glittering shore, how pleasant, we say, for wearied man to sit in leafy umbrage, and sup on Dodos and their kindred! Alas! we shall never see such days again. Dr. Hamel, as native of a northern country, is fond of animal food, and has his senses, naturally sharp enough, 80 whetted thereby, that he becomes sagacious of his quarry from afar." He judiciously observes, in his recent memoir (Der Dodo, &c.), that in Leguat's map the place is accurately indicated where the common kitchen of the settlers stood, and where the great tree grew under which they used to sit, on a bench, to take their meals. Both tree and bench are marked upon the map. "At these two spots," says Dr. Hamel, "it is probable that the bones of a complete skeleton of Leguat's solitaire might be collected; those of the head and feet on the site of the kitchen, and the sternum and other bones on that of the tree.” "I feel confident," says Mr. Strickland, "that if active naturalists would make a series of excavations in the alluvial deposits, in the beds of streams, and amid Bourbon, and Rodriguez, they would speedily discover the remains of the dodo, the two solitaires,' or the oiseau bleu.' But I would especially direct attention to the caves with which these volcanic islands abound. The chief agents in the destruction of the brevi pennate birds were probably the runaway negroes, who for many years infested the primeval forests of these islands, and inhabited the caverns, where they would doubtless leave the scattered bones of the animals on which they fed. Here, then, may we more especially hope to find the osseous remains of these remarkable animals.”—(P. 61.) the ruins of old institutions in Mauritius, THE SWORD OF HONOUR. A TALE OF 1787. ANY old directory of the latter half of the last century will still show, to the curious in such matters, the address of Messrs. Hope and Bullion, merchants and general dealers at No. 4, in a certain high and narrow street in the city of London. Not that this, in itself, is a very valuable part of history; but to those who look up at the dirty windows of the house as it now stands, and compare the narrow pavement and cit-like appearance of the whole locality with the splendours of Oxford Square or Stanhope Place, where the business occupant of the premises has now his residence, it will be a subject of doubt, if not of unbelief, that Mr. Bullionwho dwelt in the upper portions of the building-was as happy, and nearly as proud as his successor at the present time. Yet so it is; and, without making invidious comparisons with the distinguished-looking lady who does the honours of the mansion in Oxford Square-her father was a sugar baker, and lived in a magnificent country house at Mussel hill-I will venture to state, that Mr. Bullion had great reason to be satisfied with the manners and appearance of the young person who presided at his festive board. Such a rich laugh, and such a sweet voice, were heard in no other house in the town. And as to her face and figure, the only dispute among painters and sculptors was, whether the ever-varying expression of her features did not constitute her the true property of the Reynoldses and Romneys,-or the ever-exquisite moulding of her shape did not bring her within the province of the severer art. At the same time it must be confessed, that the subject of these disputes took no interest either in brush or chisel. A bright, happy, clever creature-but no judge of sciences and arts-was Louise Bullion. Books she had read a few, and music she had studied a little; yet, with her slender knowledge of the circulating library, she talked more pleasantly than Madame de Staël, and sang so sweetly, so naturally, and so truly, that Mrs. Billington was a fool to her. She was a parlour Jenny Lind. But Mrs. Billington was not the only person who was a fool to her. Oh no!-that sort of insanity was epidemic, and seized on all that came near her. Even Mr. Cocker the book-keeper-a little man of upwards of fifty, who was so simple, and knew so little of anything but arithmetic, that he always considered himself, and was considered by the people, a boy just getting on in his teens-even Mr. Cocker was a fool to her too. For when he was invited to tea, and had his cups sweetened by her hand, and his whole heart turned, by some of her pathetic ballads, into something so soft and oily that it must have been just like one of the muffins she laid on his plate, he used to go away with a very confused idea of cube roots, and get into the most extraordinary puzzles in the rule of three. Miss Louise, he said, would never go out of his head; whereas she had never once got into it, having established her quarters very comfortably in another place a little lower down, just inside of the brass buttons on his left breast; and yet the poor old fellow went down to his grave without the remotest suspicion that .he had ever been in love. The people used to say that his perplexities, on those occasions, were principally remarkable after supper-for an invitation to tea, in those hospitable times, included an afterpiece in the shape of some roaring hot dishes, and various bowls of a stout and jovial beverage, whose place, I beg to say, is poorly supplied by any conceivable quantity of negus and jellies! Yes, the people used to say that Cocker's difficulties in calculation arose from other causes than his admiration of Miss Louise and her songs; but this was a calumny -and, in fact, any few extra glasses he took were for the express purpose of clearing his head, after it had got bewildered by her smiles and music; and therefore how could they possibly be the cause of his bewilderment? I repeat that Mr. Cocker was afflicted by the universal disease, and would have died with the greatest happiness to give her a moment's satisfaction. And so would all the clerks, except one, who was very short-sighted and remarkably deaf, and who was afterwards tried on suspicion of having poisoned his wife; and so would her aunt, Miss Lucretia Smith, though her kindness was so wonderfully disguised that the whole world would have been justified in considering it harshness and ill-nature. It was only her way of bestowing it—as if you were to pour out sugar from a vinegar cruet; and a good old, fussy,scolding, grumbling, advising, tormenting, and very loving lady was Miss Lucretia Smith-very loving, I say, not only of her niece, and her brother-in-law, but of anybody that would agree to be loved. Traditions existed that, in her youth, she had been a tremendous creature for enthusiasms and romances; that she had flirted with all the officers of the city militia, from the colonel downwards, and with all the Lord Mayors' chaplains for an infinite series of years; and that, though nothing came of all her praiseworthy efforts, time had had a strengthening instead of a weakening effect on all these passages-till now, in her fifty-third year, she actually believed she had been in love with them all, and on the point of marriage with more than half. And this constituted the whole of Mr. Bullion's establishment—at least all his establishment which was regularly on the books; but there was a young man so constantly in the house -so much at home there-so welcome when he came, so wondered at when he stayed away-in short, so much one of the family, that I will only say, if he was not considered a member of it, he ought to have been. For what, I pray you, constitutes membership, if intimacy, kindness, perpetual presence, and nilial and fraternal affection-filial to the old man, fraternal to the young lady-do not constitute it? You might have sworn till doomsday, but Mr. Cecil Hope would never have believed that his home was anywhere but at No. 4. Nay, when, by some accident, he found himself for a day in a very pretty, very tasteful, and very |