In 1848, the English zoologist Hugh Edwin Strickland called attention to a bird mentioned in the French traveller François Leguat's 1708 memoir about his stay on the Mascarene island of Rodrigues. Leguat referred to the birds as "gelinottes" (translated as "wood-hens"), a name Strickland thought implied the grouse of Europe, though this was not consistent with the form of the beak described by Leguat. Strickland was unable to classify the bird further, but noted similarities with the dodo ("Raphus cucullatus") and kiwi ("Apteryx"), based on unidentified birds from Mauritius illustrated by the travellers Pieter van den Broecke and Sir Thomas Herbert, which he thought related. Strickland also noted similarities with a bird from Mauritius, which would later be identified as the red rail ("Aphanapteryx bonasia").