your readers have seen it in print, and may be able to give some account
of its origin and etymology, and decide whether it is exclusively
belonging to Eton.

BRAYBROOKE.

April 14.

* * * * *


REPLIES.

THE DODO QUERIES.

There is no mention of the Solitaire as inhabiting Bourbon, either in
Père Brown's letter or in the _Voyage de l'Arabic Heureuse_, from whence
the notice of the Oiseau Bleu was extracted. I have since seen Dellon,
_Rélation d'un Voyage des Indes Orientales_, 2 vols. 12mo. Paris, 1685,
in which there is a brief notice of the Isle of Bourbon or Mascarin; but
neither the Dodo, the Solitaire, or the Oiseau Bleu are noticed. The
large Bat is mentioned, and the writer says that the French who were on
the island did not eat it, but only the Indians. He also notices the
tameness of the birds, and says that the Flammand, with its long neck,
is the only bird it was necessary to use a gun against, the others being
readily destroyed with a stick or taken by hand.

Mr. Strickland's correction of the error about the monumental evidence
of the discovery of Bourbon by the Portuguese, in 1545, will aid
research into the period at which it was first visited and named; but my