Introduction

General

Already famous in the seventeenth century for the Dodo and the quality of its ebony, Mauritius is biologically the best known of the Mascarene Islands. However, ecological studies of the native biota date only from the 1930s, with Vaughan & Wiehé's pioneering work (1937, 1941) on the forests. The basic natural history of some of the birds has been known for two centuries, but no systematic ecological studies had been done before 1973 when Dr S. Temple and the BOU Expedition began work. Most of the native forest birds, all endemic or shared only with Réunion, had been considered endangered for over a century (E. Newton 1865b), so their study was overdue. The historical background of the abundance and distribution of Mauritian birds is given by Clark (1859), E. Newton (1861b), Carié (1904), Meinertzhagen (1912), Guérin (1940-53), Rountree et al. (1952) and Newton (1958a). Since 1973, numerous publications on the island birds and their conservation have appeared (e.g. Procter & Salm 1975, Cheke 1978a, Jones & Owadally 1982a, and others cited in appropriate places in the text), and F. Staub has written two books on the birds’ natural history and identification (in French, 1973a; revised in English, 1976). This paper gives the detailed results of the BOU Expedition's observations.

Expedition personnel were based in Mauritius. I was on the island from late September 1973 to late February 1975 except for absences in December 1973, late April to mid-May, June, August and November 1974, and mid-February 1975.1 also made short trips to Rodrigues on several occasions. I re-visited the island briefly in October 1978 under the auspices of the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust.