Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1874-07-15
Miscellany.


Francis Leguat, flying from France
with q Protestant party, came in 1851
to the island of Rodriguez, till then
unexplored, and lived there two years.
The story of our compatriot's Travels
and Adventures" has been published; !;
we find IN it the description of the fine
bird called by him the hermit (Pezop-
haps solitarius). OF all the birds in
Rodriguez Island, Legust says this is
the most remarkable species. The
males are variously feathered with gray
and brown, with the feet of turkey,
and the bill shaped like the turkeys
also, but little more hooked. They
are almost tailless, and their rump is
rounded and covered with feathers,
higher on the legs than the turkey;
they have a straight and rather long
neck, black sparkling eve, and a head
without crest or TUT. The female, our
traveller says, is admirably beautiful;
there are blonds and brunettes among
them, marked on the forehead with a
stripe like widows band. and ON the
breast with plumage winter than the
rest of the body. They walk with such
a mingling of pride and gracefulLess
that one cannot avoid admiring and
loving them, SO that their good looks
often save their lives. Not a feather
lies uneven on their whole body, such
pains do they take to smooth aud ar
range their plumage with their bills.
These hermit birds do not fly; they
only use their wings, which are too
small to bear the weight of the body,
either in fighting or drumming when
calling each other. Leguat adds that
they are taken with great difficulty in
the woods; but in open places it is easy
to run them down, as they are not very
swift. From March to September they
are extremely fat, and the taste, espe-
cially of the young ones, excellent.
Some among the males are found weigh
ing forty-ive pounds. These birds, in
tending to build nest, choose a clear
spot, collect a few palm leaves, and
raise the structure foot and a half
above the surface; they hatch but one
egg at time, and the male and female
sit alternately during seven weeks, the
period of incubation, and for some
months longer the young bird needs
assistance from the old ones. These
beautiful birds of Rodriguez, called
hermits because they seldom go in
focks, were abundant in the island at
the end of the seventeenth century,
when the French naturalist expressed
such admiration for them. In q few
years they have all persisted, and no.
thing but bones crusted with stalsg-
mite permitted us to ascertain that the
species described by Leguat was of q
kind unknown elsewhere, when An Eng
lish explorer, Newton, undertook to
examine the caves and boggy lands of
the small island of Rodriguez. More
than two thousand fragments, the last
traces of the extinct bird, were col
lected. The study of these wretched
relics was made with the greatest care.
and We now know that the hermit-bird
represented a special type, having close
affinities with the dodo and the pigeon.
A singular detail leads us to place full
reliance on Leguat's observations. Our
traveller has said, in speaking of the
males of this Rodriguez bird: 1.-The
wing of the pinion thickens at its end,
and forms little round mass like a
musket-ball under the feathers; this,
with the bill, is the birds chief de-
fense" This little round mass has
been found in the shape of a bony pro-
minence on that part of the limb called
the metacarpus.-PopuLar Science
Monthly.