Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1874-07-02
The Hermit Bird.

Francis Lcguat, flying from France,
with Protestant party, came in 1851
to the island of Rodriguez, till then
unexplorctl, and lived there two years.
The story of our compatriot's "Travels
and adventures" has been published;
VIC find in it tho description Of the fine
bird called by him the hermit (I'czop-
laps sotitarins). OF all tho birds in
Rodriguez island, Leguat says this is
tho most remarkable species. The
males are variously fcathercd with gray
and brown, with tho feet Of I. turkey,
and the bill shaped like the turkeys
also, but little moro hooked. They
aro almost tailless, and their rump is
rounded and covered with feathers,
higher ON the legs than the turkey
they have straight and rather long
neck, black, sparkling eye, and q
head without crest or tuft. Tho fc-
male, our traveller says, is admirably
beautiful; there arc blondes and br,i-
ncttcs among them, mark cd on the fore
head with strip like widows band,
and on the breast with plllmago Whittier
than the rest Of the body. Tlley walk
with such a mipgling of pride and
graccfulrcss that one cannot avoid adj
miring and loving them, so that their
good looks often save their lives. Not
n feather lies uneven on their whole
body, such pains do they take to
smooth and arrange their plumrgo will,
their bills. These hermit birds do not
fly; they only use their wings, which
are too small to bear tho 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, rs they are not
very swift. From March to September
they arc extremely fat, and the
taste, especially of the young
ones, excellent. Some among the
males aro found weighing forty five
pounds. These birds, intending to
build a nest, choose q clear spot, col
lcct few palm leaves, and raise the
structure a foot and half above the
surface; they hatch but one egg Mt a
time, and the malc and female sit alter
natcly 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 hcrmits because they
seldom 60 in hocks, were abundant in
the island at the end of the seventeenth
century, when tho French naturalist OK
pressed such admiration for them. In
a few years they have all persisted, and
nothing but bones crushed with stalag-
mite permitted us to ascertain that the
species described by Leguat was of a
kind unknown elsewhere, when an Eng
lish explorer, Newton, undertook to ex-
anime the caves and DOGGY lands of the
small island of Rodriguez. More than
two thousand fragments, the last traces
of tho extinct bird, were collected. 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 af1inities
with the dodo and the pigeon A sin.
g,llar detail leads us to place full reli.
ancc on Leguat's observations. Our
traveller had said, in speaking of the
males of this Rodriguez bird: "The
wing of the pinion thickcns at its end,
and forms u little round mass like q
mrsket-ball under tho feathers; this,
with the bill, is the bird chief defense. 81
This little round mass has been found
in the shape of bony prominence on
that part of the limb called the metacar-