(PLATE 23, 25A, FIGS. 1, 2, 3.)
_Solitaire_ Leguat, Voy. deux iles désertes Ind. Or. I pp. 98. 102
(1708).
_Didus solitarius_ Gmelin, S. N. I p. 728, n. 2 (1788).
_Pezophaps solitaria_ Strickland, the Dodo, &c., p. 46 (1848).
_Didus nazarenus_ Bartl. (nec. Gmel.), P. Z. S. 1851, p. 284, pl. XLV.
_Pezophaps minor_ Strickland, Contr. to Orn. 1852, p. 19 (?).
This bird was first made known by Leguat in 1708, but some confusion seems
to have arisen, owing to his applying the same name to them as the Sieur
D.B. (Dubois) gave to the Bourbon Dodo in 1674. This is the original
description:--
"The feathers of the males 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 hare. They are taller than turkeys. Their neck is straight, and a little
longer in proportion than a turkey's when it lifts up his head. Its eye is
black and lively, and its head without comb on cop. They never fly, their
wings are too little to support the weight of their bodies; they serve only
to beat themselves and flutter when they call one another. They will whirl
about for twenty or thirty times together on the same side during the space
of 4 or 5 minutes. The motions of their wings make then a noise very like
that of a rattle, and one may hear it two hundred paces off. The bone of
their {178} wings 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 defences of this bird. 'Tis very hard to catch in the woods,
but easy in open places, because we run faster than they, and sometimes we
approach them without much trouble. From March to September they are very
fat, and taste admirably well, especially while they are young, some of the
males weigh 45 pounds. The females are wonderfully beautiful, some fair,
some brown. I call them fair, because they are the colour of fair hair;
they have a sort of peak like a widow's, upon their breasts, 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 craws, and the feathers are whiter there than the
rest, which livelily represents the fine neck of a beautiful woman. They
walk with so much stateliness and good grace that one cannot help admiring
them and loving them, by which means their fine mien often saves their
lives."
The unfortunate Solitaires, owing to the depredations by the pigs and
monkeys introduced by the settlers, and the unceasing slaughter by the
latter, became extinct between the years 1760 and 1780.