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 settlement, we have scarcely any information regarding it beyond what is to be found 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 Rodriguez, 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 afterwards found their way to Paris, where they may still be seen. We are informed (_Proceedings of the Zoological Society_, Part I. p. 31) that Col. Dawkins recently visited these caverns, and dug without finding any thing 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 race. Be that as it may, Mr Telfair 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.