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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.
Of their habits we only have the accounts of Leguat:—
"Though these birds will sometimes very familiarly come up near enough to one, when we do not run after them, yet they will never grow tame, as soon as they are caught they shed tears, without crying, and refuse all manner of sustenance till they die.
When these birds build their nests, they choose a clean place, gather together some palm leaves for that purpose, and heap them up a foot and a half high from the ground, on which they sit. They never lay but one egg, which is much bigger than that of a goose. The male and female both cover it in their turns, and the young is not hatched till at 7 weeks end. All the while they are sitting upon it, or are bringing up their young one, which is not able to provide for itself in several months, they will not suffer any other bird of their species to come within two hundred yards round of the place. But what is very singular is, the males will never drive away the females, only when they perceive one they make a noise with their wings to call their own female—she drives away the unwelcome stranger, not leaving it till it was without her bounds. The female does the same as to males, which she leaves to the male who drives them away. We have observed this several times, and I
