de Vilers,
who had been governor there for the India Company, in which it is
said,-- {354}
"The island was uninhabited when the Portuguese, after having
doubled the Cape of Good Hope, discovered it. They gave it the
name of Mascarhenas, _a cause que leur chef se nommoit ainsi_;
and the vulgar still preserve it, calling the inhabitants
_Mascarins_. It was not decidedly inhabited until 1654, when
M. de Flacour, commandant at Madagascar, sent some invalids
there to recover their health, that others followed; and since
then it has been named the Isle of Bourbon."
Still no notice of the _Dodo!_ but
"On y trouve des oiseaux appelez _Flamans_, qui excedent la
hauteur d'un grand homme."
Qu. 6. I know not whether Mr. S. is aware that there is the head of a
Dodo in the Royal Museum of Natural History at Copenhagen, which came
from the collection of Paludanus? M. Domeny de Rienzi, the compiler of
_Oceanie, ou cinquieme Partie du Globe_ (1838, t. iii. p. 384.), tells
us, that a Javanese captain gave him part of a _Dronte_, which he
unfortunately lost on being shipwrecked; but he forgot where he said
he obtained it.
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