François Leguat (1637 - 1735) was a French explorer and naturalist. Events February 3 - Tulipmania collapses in Netherlands by government order February 15 - Ferdinand III becomes Holy Roman Emperor December 17 - Shimabara Rebellion erupts in Japan Pierre de Fermat makes a marginal claim to have proof of what would become known as Fermats last theorem. ... Events 16 April - The London premiere of Alcina by George Frideric Handel, his first the first Italian opera for the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden. ... See also explorations, sea explorers, astronaut, conquistador, travelogue, the History of Science and Technology and Biography. ... -1...

Leguat was a huguenot who fled to Holland after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. In 1690 he boarded a ship with a group of other Huguenots bound for the Indian Ocean. They intended to start a new life on the island of Reunion, which they believed had been abandoned by the French, but on finding them still there landed instead on the uninhabited island of Rodrigues. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the name of Huguenots came to apply to members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France. ... This article is about the region in the Netherlands. ... The Edict of Nantes was issued on April 13, 1598 by Henry IV of France to grant French Protestants (also known as Huguenots) substantial rights in a Catholic nation. ... Rodrigues (or Rodriguez) is an island in the Indian Ocean. ...

After two years there they constructed a boat and sailed to Mauritius. Leguat eventually returned to Europe and published a description of his adventures in A New Voyage to the East Indies (1708). This included details of his natural history observations on Rodrigues, such as Rodrigues Solitaire and Newton's Parakeet. Binomial name Pezophaps solitaria Gmelin, 1789 The Rodrigues Solitaire (Pezophaps solitaria) was a flightless member of the pigeon family endemic to Rodrigues, Mauritius. ...

Reference

• Dodo: From Extinction to Icon - Errol Fuller ISBN 0007145721