Mr. Strickland has justly observed that this subject "belongs rather
to human history than to pure zoology." Though I have not seen Mr.
Strickland's book, I venture to offer him a few suggestions, not as
_answers_ to his questions, but as slight aids towards the resolution
of some of them.
Qu. 1. There can be no doubt about the discovery of Mauritius
and Bourbon by the Portuguese; and if not by a Mascarhenas, that
the islands were first so named in honour of some member of that
illustrious family, many of whom make a conspicuous figure in the
Decads of the Portuguese Livy. I expected to have found some notice
of the discovery in the very curious little volume of Antonio
Galvaõ, printed in 1563, under the following title:--_Tratado dos
Descobrimentos Antigos, e Modernos feitos até a Era de 1550_; but I
merely find a vague notice of several nameless islands--"alguma Ilheta
sem gente: onde diz que tomaraõ agoa e lenha"--and that, in 1517,
Jorge Mascarenhas was despatched by sea to the coast of China. This
is the more provoking, as, in general, Galvaõ is very circumstantial
about the discoveries of his countrymen.
Qu. 5. The article in Ree's _Cyclopædia_ is a pretty specimen of the
manner in which such things are sometimes concocted, as the following
extracts will show:--
"Of _Bats_ they have as big as Hennes about Java and the
neighbor islands. Clusius bought one of the Hollanders, which
they brought from the Island of Swannes (Ilha do Cisne), newly
styled by them Maurice Island. It was about a foot from head
to taile, above a foot about; the wings one and twenty inches
long, nine broad; the claw, whereby it hung on the trees, was
two inches," &c. "Here also they found a Fowle, which they
called Walgh-vogel, of the bigness of a Swanne, and most
deformed shape." (_Purchas his Pilgrimage_, 1616, p. 642.)