| Fig. 2.—The Solitaire of Rodriguez (Pezophaps solitarius). From Leguat’s figure. |
The huge blackish bill of the dodo terminated in a large, horny hook; the cheeks were partly bare, the stout, short legs yellow. The plumage was dark ash-coloured, with whitish breast and tail, yellowish white wings (incapable of flight). The short tail formed a curly tuft.
The dodo is said to have inhabited forests and to have laid one large white egg on a mass of grass. Besides man, hogs and other imported animals seem to have exterminated it. But the dodo is not the only member of its family that has vanished. The little island which has successively borne the name of Mascaregnas, England’s Forest, Bourbon and Réunion, and lies to the southward of Mauritius, had also an allied bird, now dead and gone. Of this not a relic has been handled by any naturalist. The latest description of it, by Du Bois in 1674, is very meagre, while Bontekoe (1646) gave a figure, apparently intended to represent it. It was originally called the “solitaire,” but this name was also applied to Pezophaps solitarius of Rodriguez by the Huguenot exile Leguat, who described and figured it about 1691.
The solitaire, Didus solitarius of Gmelin, referred by Strickland to a district genus Pezophaps, is supposed to have lingered in the island of Rodriguez until about 1761. Leguat[8] has given a delightful description of its quaint habits. The male stood about 2 ft. 9 in. high; its colour was brownish grey, that of its mate more inclined to brown, with a whitish breast. The wings were rudimentary, the tail very small, almost hidden, and the thigh feathers were thick and curled “like shells.” A round mass of bone, “as big as a musket ball,” was developed on the wings of the males, and they used it as a weapon of offence while they whirled themselves about twenty or thirty times in four or five minutes, making a noise with their pinions like a rattle. The mien was fierce and the walk stately, the birds living singly or in pairs. The nest was a heap of palm leaves a foot high, and contained a single large egg which was incubated by both parents. The food consisted of seeds and leaves, and the birds aided digestion by swallowing large stones; these were used by the Dutch sailors to sharpen their knives with. One of these stones, nearly an inch and a half in length, of extremely hard volcanic rock, is in the Cambridge museum. The fighting knobs mentioned above, are very interesting, large exostoses on one of the wrist-bones of either wing; they were undoubtedly covered with a thick, callous skin. Thousands of bones of this curious flightless pigeon were collected through Sir E. Newton’s[9] exertions, and by H. H. Sclater on behalf of the Royal Society of London. The results are several almost complete skeletons of both sexes, composed however out of the enormous mass of the dissociated bones.
(A. N.; H. F. G.)
| Fig. 3.—Skeleton of a male Solitaire, Pezophaps solitarius, Museum of Zoology, Cambridge. |
[1] The etymology of these names has been much discussed. That of the latter, which has generally been adopted by German and French authorities, seems to defy investigation, but the former has been shown by Prof. Schlegel (Versl. en Mededeel. K. Akad. Wetensch. ii. pp. 255 et seq.) to be the homely name of the dabchick or little grebe (Podiceps minor), of which the Dutchmen were reminded by the round stern and tail diminished to a tuft that characterized the dodo. The same learned authority suggests that dodo is a corruption of Dodaars, but, as will presently be seen, we herein think him mistaken.
[2] What has become of the specimen (which may have been a relic of the bird brought home by Van Neck’s squadron) is not known. Broderip and Dr Gray have suggested its identity with that now in the British Museum, but on what grounds is not apparent.
[3] i.e. Rodriguez; an error.