ly after the holidays. There were also sometimes attempts made to
"_brozier my dame_," in case a suspicion had arisen that the good lady's
larder was not too well supplied. The supper table was accordingly
cleared of all the provisions, and a further stock of eatables
peremptorily demanded.

I spell the word "brozier" as it is still pronounced; perhaps some of
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
Pere 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,
_Relation 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
stock of Portuguese literature is but small, and not all of it
accessible {486} to me at present. In the meantime it may be acceptable
to Mr. Strickland to know, that there is a detailed account of
Portuguese discoveries in a book whose title would hardly indicate it,
in which one passage will probably interest him. I allude to the rare
and interesting folio volume printed at Lisbon in 1571. _De Rebus
Emanuelis Regis Lusitanie, invictissimi Virtute et Auspicio Gestis,
auctore Hieronymo Osorio Episcopo Silvensis_. These annals embrace the
period from 1495 to 1529. In narrating the principal events of Vasco de
Gama's first voyage, after he had rounded the Cape of Good Hope on the
25th November, 1497, steering to the east along the southern coast of
Africa, the vessels anchor in the bay of St. Blaize, where--

"In intimo sinu est parva quaedam Ins