(PLATE 29.)
_A Hen_ Sir Thomas Herbert, A relation of some years' Travaile (1626).
_Velt-hoenders_ Reyer Cornelisz, Van der Hagen's voyage (1646).
_Poules rouges au bec de Becasse_ Cauche, Rélations véritables et
curieuses de l'Isle de Madagascar (1651).
_Apterornis bonasia_ Edm. de Sélys-Longchamps, Revue Zoologique, p. 292
(1848).
_Didus herberti_ Schlegel, Vers. Med. Ak. Wetensch., II, p. 256 (1854).
_Didus broecki_ Schlegel, l.c.
_Aphanapteryx imperialis_ Frauenfeld, Neu aufgef. Abbild. Dronte, p. 6
(1868).
_Aphanapteryx broeckii_ Milne-Edwards, Ann. Sci. Nat. (5), X, pp.
325-346, pls. 15-18 (1868).
_Pezophaps broeckii_ Schlegel, Mus. Pays-Bas, Struthiones, p. 4 (1873).
I here give a translation of Frauenfeld's original diagnosis: "Of the size
of a fowl, of a uniform brown red all over. Bill and legs dark. Iris
yellowish. Feathers decomposed, as in the _Apteryx_, somewhat lengthened on
the nape."
This description was made by Frauenfeld from a drawing by G. Hoefnagels, in
the Imperial Library, Vienna, executed about the year 1610, and, together
with that of the Dodo, apparently drawn from life in the Imperial Menagerie
at Ebersdorf. This drawing proves Van den Broecke, Herbert, and Cauche's
descriptions to have been correct, though their drawings are somewhat
startlingly different in shape. Only known from these four drawings and
osseous remains. 18 fragments of beaks, 5 pelves, 35 tibiae, 1 sacrum and
fragments, and 1 vertebra in the Tring Museum.
Habitat: Mauritius.
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