Julien Tafforet (attributed)

The Solitaire is a large bird, which weighs about forty or fifty pounds. They have a very big head, with a sort of frontlet, as if of black velvet¹. Their feathers are neither feathers nor fur; they are of a light grey colour, with a little black on their backs. Strutting proudly about, either alone or in pairs, they preen their plumage or fur with their beak, and keep themselves very clean. They have their toes furnished with very hard scales, and run with quickness, mostly among the rocks, where a man, however agile, can hardly catch them. They have a very short beak, of about an inch in length, which is sharp. They, nevertheless, do not attempt to hurt anyone, except when they find some one before them, and, when hardly pressed, try to bite him. They have a small stump [sicot, chicot ?] of a wing, which has a sort of bullet at its extremity, and serves as a defence. They do not fly at all, having no feathers to their wings, but they flap them, and make a great noise with their wings when angry, and the noise is something like thunder in the distance. They only lay, as I am led to suppose, but once in the year, and only one egg. Not that I have seen their eggs, for I have not been able to discover where they lay. But I have never seen but one little one alone with them, and, if any one tried to approach it, they would bite him very severely. These birds live on seeds and leaves of trees, which they pick up on the ground. They have a gizzard larger than the fist, and what is surprising is that there is found in it a stone of the size of a hen’s egg, of oval shape, a little flattened, although this animal cannot swallow anything larger than a small cherry-stone. I have eaten them; they are tolerably well tasted.