So much for the Solitaire of Rodriguez and its affinities.[23] A singular fact, however, remains to be yet attended to in this insular group. The volcanic island of Bourbon seems also to have contained _brevi-pennate_ birds, whose inability to fly has likewise led to their extinction. This island, which lies about a hundred miles south-west of Mauritius, was discovered contemporaneously by Pedro de Mascaregnas, in the sixteenth century. The earliest notice which concerns our present inquiry, is by Captain Castleton, who visited Bourbon in 1613. In the narrative, as given by Purchas, we read as follows:-- "There is store of land-fowl, both small and great, plentie of doves, great parrats, and suchlike, and a great fowl of the bignesse of a turkie, very fat, and so short-winged that they cannot flie, beeing white, and in a manner tame; and so are all other fowles, as having not been troubled nor feared with shot. Our men did beat them down with sticks and stones."--(Ed. 1625, vol. i. p. 331.) [23] The companions of Vasco de Gama had, at an earlier period, applied the name of _Solitaires_ to certain birds found in an island near the Cape of Good Hope; but these must not be confounded with those of the Didine group above referred to. They were, in fact, penguins, and their wings were somewhat vaguely compared to those of bats, by reason of the peculiar scaly or undeveloped state of the feathers in these birds. Dr Hamel has shown that the term _Solitaires_, as employed by the Portuguese sailors, was a corruption of _sotilicairos_, an alleged Hottentot word, of which we do not profess to know the meaning, being rather rusted in that tongue. We know, however, that penguins are particularly gregarious, and, therefore, by no means solitary, although they may be extremely _sotilicairious_ for anything we can say to the contrary.