dod-eersen; her body is round and fat, which occa- | fused it with the descriptions then current of the sions the slow pace, or that her corpulencie; and cassowary. Thus he adds, that the legs were of so great as few of them weigh less than fifty pound; considerable length, that it had only three toes meat it is with some, but better to the eye than and no tongue-characters (with the exception of stomach, such as only a strong appetite can vanquish; but otherwise, through its oyliness, it can- the last, inapplicable, of course, to either kind) not chuse but quickly cloy and nauseate the stomach, which truly indicate the latter species. This name being indeed more pleasurable to look than feed up- of "Bird of Nazareth" has, moreover, given rise on. It is of a melancholy visage, as sensible of to a false or phantom species, called Didus Nazanature's injury in framing so massie a body to be renus in systematic works, and is supposed to have directed by complimental wings, such indeed as are been derived from the small island or sandbank of unable to hoise her from the ground, serving only Nazareth, to the north-east of Madagascar. Now, to rank her amongst birds. Her head is variously drest; for one half is hooded with down of a dark color, Dr. Hamel has recently rendered it probable, that the other half naked, and of a white hue, as if lawn no such island or sandbank is in existence, and were drawn over it; her bill hooks and bends down- so we need not seek for its inhabitants at all wards; the thrill or breathing place is in the midst, events there is no such bird as the Nazareen Dodo from which part to the end the color is of a light-Didus Nazarenus. green, mixt with pale yellow; her eyes are round and bright, and instead of feathers has a most fine down; her train (like to a China beard) is no more than three or four short feathers; her leggs are thick and black; her talons great; her stomach fiery, so that as she can easily digest stones; in that and shape not a little resembling the ostrich.-P. 333.

They only lay one egg, which is white, the size of a halfpenny roll; by the side of which they place a white stone, of the dimensions of a hen's egg. They lay on grass, which they collect, and make their nests in the forests; if one kills the young one, a grey stone is found in the gizzard. We call them Oiseaux de Nazaret. The fat is excellent to give ease to the muscles and nerves.

Here let us pause a moment to consider what was the probable size of a halfpenny roll in the year 1638. How many vast and various elements must be taken to account in calculating the dimensions of that "pain d'un sol!" Macculloch, Cobden, Joseph Hume, come over and help us in this our hour of knead! Was corn high or low were wages up or down? were bakers honest or dishonest was there a fixed measure of quantity for these our matutinal baps? Did town-councils regulate their weight and quality, or was conscience left comptroller, from the quartern loaf downwards to the smallest form assumed by yeast and flour?

The next piece of evidence regarding the Dodo is highly interesting and important, as it shows that, at least in one instance, this extraordinary bird was transported alive to Europe, and exhibited in our own country. In a manuscript preserved in the British Museum, Sir Hamon Lestrange, the father of the more celebrated Sir Roger, in a commentary on Brown's Vulgar Errors and apropos of the ostrich, records as follows:—

About 1638, as I walked London streets, I saw the picture of a strange fowle hong out upon a cloth, and myselfe, with one or two more then in It was kept in a chamber, and was a great fowle, somewhat bigger than company, went in to see it. the largest turkey-cock, and so legged and footed, but stouter and thicker, and of more erect shape; coloured before like the breast of a young cock fesan, and, on the back, of dunn or deare coulour. The keeper called it a Dodo; and in the end of a chimney in the chamber there lay a heape of large pebble stones, whereof hee gave it many in our sight, some as bigg as nutmegs, and the keeper told us she eats them (conducing to digestion); and though I remember not how farr the keeper was questioned therein, yet I am confident that afterwards shee cast them all againe.

It is curious that no confirmation can be obtained of this exhibition from contemporary authorities. The period was prolific in pamphlets and broadsides, but political excitement probably engrossed the minds of the majority, and rendered them careless of the wonders of nature. Yet the individual in question may in all likelihood be traced down to the present day, and portions of it seen and handled by the existing generation. In Tradescant's catalogue of his " Collection of Rarities preserved at South Lambeth, near London," 1656, we find an entry-" Dodar from the island Mauritius; it is not able to flie, being so big." It is enumerated under the head of "Whole birds;" and Willughby, whose Ornithologia appeared in 1676, says of the Dodo, "Exuvias hujusce avis vidimus in museo Tradescantiano.” specimen is alluded to by Llhwyd in 1684, and by Hyde in 1700-having passed, weanwhile, into Ashmolean Museum, at Oxford, with the rest of There is no doubt that the bird recorded by the Tradescantian collection. As Tradescant was Cauche was the true Dodo, although it is probable the most noted collector of things natural in his that he either described it from memory, or con- day, and there were few, if any, to enter into

Tell me where was fancy bread?

Does no one know precisely what was the size of a halfpenny roll in the year 1638? In that case we shall not mention the dimensions of the Dodo's egg.

The same

competition with him, it may be well supposed | lowing entry :-"A legge of a Dodo, a great

The considerate reader will not unnaturally ask, torf, (the seat of the Dukes of Schleswig, and reWhere is now that last of Dodos? and echo an-cently a less easy one than we have known it,) swers, where? Alas! it was destroyed, "by of which the first edition was published in 1666, order of the visitors," in 1755. The following there is the following notice of a Dodo's head :is the evidence of that destruction, as given by Mr. J. S. Duncan, in the 3d volume of the Zoological Journal, p. 559 :—

By some lucky accident, however, a small portion of "this last descendant of an ancient race," as Mr. Strickland terms it, escaped the clutches of the destroyers. "The head and one of the feet were saved from the flames, and are still pre-been well enough known to such of our greatserved in the Ashmolean Museum."*

and on the 11th they began to build huts, and | In the Observations sur la Physique for the year with much labor spread out their cargo to dry :- 1778, there is a negative notice, by M. Morel, Now, having a little reapitt, I will make a little of the Dodo and its kindred. "Ces oiseaux, si description of the island, first of its producks, then bien décrits dans le tome 2 de l'Histoire des Oiof its parts; ffirst, of winged and feathered ffowle, seaux de M. le Comte de Buffon, n'ont jamais été the less passant are Dodos, whose flesh is very hard, vus aux Isles de France, &c., depuis plus de 60 a small sort of Gees, reasonably good Teele, Cuckoes, Pasca flemingos, Turtle Doves, large Batts, colonies Françoises. ans que ces parages sont habités et visités par des many small birds which are good. *Heer are Les plus anciens habitans many wild hoggs and land-turtle which are very assurent tous que ces oiseaux monstreaux leur good, other small creators on the Land, as Scor- ont toujours été inconnus." M. Bory St. Vincent, pions and Musketoes, these in small numbers, who visited the Mauritius and Bourbon in 1801, Batts and fleys a multitude, Munkeys of various and has given us an account of the physical features of those islands in his "Voyage," assures us (vol. ii., p. 306) that he instituted all possible inquiries regarding the Dodo (or Dronte) and its kindred, without being able to pick up the slightest information on the subject, and although he advertised "une grande recompense à qui pourrait lui donner la moindre indice de l'ancienne ex

sorts.

prouvé que le souvenir même du Dronte était perdu parmi les créoles." De Blainville informs us (Nouv. Ann. Mus. iv. 31) that the subject was discussed at a public dinner at the Mauritius in 1816, where were present several persons from seventy to ninety years of age, none of whom had any

After this all historical evidence of the existence of the Dodo ceases, although we cannot doubt that they continued for yet a few years. The Dutch first colonized the Mauritius in 1644. The island is not above forty miles in length; and although, when first discovered, it was found clothed with dense forests of palms, and various other trees-among|istence de cet oiseau, un silence universel a whose columnar stems and leafy umbrage the native creatures might find a safe abode, with food and shelter-how speedily would not the improvident rapacity of hungry colonists, or of reckless fresh-flesh-bereaved mariners, diminish the numbers of a large and heavy-bodied bird, of powerless wing and slow of foot, and useful, more- knowledge of any Dodo, either from recollection over, in the way of culinary consumption. Mr. Strickland is of opinion that their destruction would be further hastened, or might be mainly caused, by the dogs, cats, and swine which accompany man in his migrations, and become themselves emancipated in the forests. All these creatures are more or less carnivorous, and are fond of eggs and young birds; and as the Dodo is said to have hatched only one egg at a time, a single savage mouthful might suffice to destroy the hope of a family for many a day.

That the destruction of Dodos was completed by 1693, Mr. Strickland thinks may be inferred from the narrative of Leguat, who, in that year, remained several months in the Mauritius, and while enumerating its animal productions at considerable length, makes no mention whatever of the bird in question. He adds-" L'isle était autrefois toute remplie d'oyes et de canards sauvages; de poules d'eau, de gelinottes, de tortues de mer et de terre, mais tout cela est devenue fort rare.” And, while referring to the "hogs of the China kind," he states that these beasts do a great deal of damage, by devouring all the young animals they can catch. It is thus sufficiently evident that civilization was making aggressive inroads on the natural

state of the Mauritius even in 1693.

The Dutch evacuated the island in 1712, and were succeeded by the French, who colonized it under the name of Isle de France; and this change in the population no doubt accounts for the almost entire absence of any traditionary knowledge of this remarkable bird among the later inhabitants. Baron Grant lived in the Mauritius for twenty years from 1740; and his son, who compiled his papers into a history of the island, states that no trace of such a bird was to be found at that time.

or tradition. Finally, Mr. J. V. Thompson, who resided some years in Mauritius prior to 1816, states (Mag. of Nat. Hist., ii. 443) that no more traces could then be found of the Dodo than of the truth of the tale of Paul and Virginia.

But the historical evidence already adduced, as to the former existence of this bird, is confirmed in a very interesting manner, by what may be called the pictorial proof. Besides the rude delineations given by the earlier voyagers, there are several old oil-paintings of the Dodo still extant, by skilful artists, who had no other object in view than to represent with accuracy the forms before them. These paintings are five in number, whereof one is anonymous; three bear the name of Roland Savery, an eminent Dutch animal-painter of the early portion of the seventeenth century, and one is by John Savery, Roland's nephew.

The first of these is the best known, and is that from which the figure of the Dodo, in all modern compilations of ornithology, has been copied. It once belonged to George Edwards, who, in his work on birds, (vi. 294,) tells us, that "the original picture was drawn in Holland, from the living bird, brought from St. Maurice's Island in the East Indies, in the early times of the discovery of the Indies by the way of the Cape of Good Hope. It was the property of the late Sir H. Sloane to the time of his death, and afterwards becoming my property, I deposited it in the British Museum as a great curiosity. The above history of the picture I had from Sir H. Sloane, and the late Dr. Mortimer, secretary to the Royal Society." It is still preserved in the place to which Edwards had consigned it, and may be seen in the bird gallery, along with the actual foot already mentioned. Although without name or date, the similarity both

of design and execution leads to the conclusion that Prince Maurice's collection afforded the living that it was by one or other of the Saverys. It may prototype-an opinion so far strengthened by Edbe seen engraved in the Penny Cyclopædia, in wards' tradition, that the painting in the British illustration of Mr. Broderip's article Dodo in that Museum was drawn in Holland from a "living work. bird." Either view is preferable to Dr. Hamel's suggestion, that Savery's representation was taken from the Dodo exhibited in London, as that individual was seen alive by Sir Hamon Lestrange in 1638, and must therefore (by no means a likely occurrence) have lived, in the event supposed, at least twelve years in captivity.

Very recently, Dr. J. J. de Tchudi, the well

The second painting, one of Roland Savery's, is in the royal collection at the Hague, and may be regarded as a chef-d'œuvre. It represents Orpheus charming the creation, and we there behold the Dodo spell-bound, with his other mute companions. All the ordinary creatures there shown are depicted with the greatest truthfulness; and why should the artist, delighting, as he seems to known Peruvian traveller, transmitted to Mr. have done, in tracing the most delicate features of familiar nature, have marred the beautiful consistency of his design by introducing a feigned, or even an exaggerated representation? We may here adduce the invaluable evidence of Professor Owen.

Strickland an exact copy of another figure of the
Dodo, which forms part of a picture in the impe-
rial collection of the Belvedere at Vienna-by no
means a safe location, in these tempestuous times,
for the treasures of either art or nature.
But we
trust that Prince Windischgratz and the hanging
committee, will now see that all is right, and that
General Bem has not been allowed to carry off this
drawing of the Dodo in his carpet-bag. It is.
dated 1628.

While at the Hague, in the summer of 1838, I was much struck with the minuteness and accuracy with which the exotic species of animals had been painted by Savery and Breughel, in such subjects as Orpheus charming the Beasts, &c., in which scope was allowed for grouping together a great There are two circumstances, (says Mr. Strickvariety of animals. Understanding that the cele- land,) which gave an especial interest to this brated managerie of Prince Maurice had afforded the painting. First, the novelty of attitude in the living models to these artists, I sat down one day Dodo, exhibiting an activity of character, which before Savery's Orpheus and the Beasts, to make corroborates the supposition that the artist had a a list of the species, which the pictures sufficiently living model before him, and contrasting strongly evinced that the artist had had the opportunity to with the aspect of passive solidity in the other pic study alive. Judge of my surprise and pleasure in tures. And, secondly, the Dodo is represented as detecting, in a dark corner of the picture, (which is watching, apparently with hungry looks, the merry Are we hence badly hung between two windows,) the Dodo, wrigglings of an eel in the water! beautifully finished, showing, for example, though to infer that the Dodo fed upon eels? The advobut three inches long, the auricular circle of feath- cates of the Raptorial affinities of the Dodo, of ers, the scutation of the tarsi, and the loose struc- whom we shall soon speak, will doubtless reply in ture of the caudal plumes. In the number and the affirmative; but, as I hope shortly to demonproportions of the toes, and in general form, it ac-strate that it belongs to a family of birds all the cords with Edwards' oil painting in the British Museum; and I conclude that the miniature must have been copied from the study of a living bird, which, it is most probable, formed part of the Mauritian menagerie. The bird is standing in profile, with a lizard at its feet.-Penny Cyclopædia, xxiii. p. 143.

other members of which are frugivorous, I can only
regard the introduction of the eel as a pictorial li-
cense. In this, as in all his other paintings, Savery
brought into juxtaposition animals from all coun-
tries, without regarding geographical distribution.
His delineations of birds and beasts were wonder-
fully exact, but his knowledge of natural history
probably went no further; and although the Dodo
is certainly looking at the eel, yet we have no proof
that he is going to eat it. The mere collocation
of animals in an artistic composition, cannot be
revealed by comparative anatomy.—P. 30.
accepted as evidence against the positive truths

The fifth and last old painting of the Dodo, is that now in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and presented to it by Mr. Darby, in 1813. Nothing is known of its previous history. It is the work of John Savery, the nephew of Roland, and is dated 1651. Its most peculiar character is the colossal scale on which it has been designed-the Dodo of this canvass standing about three feet and a half in height.

Mr. Strickland, in 1845, made a search through the Royal Gallery of Berlin, which was known to contain several of Savery's pictures. Among them, we are happy to say that he found one rep resenting the Dodo, with numerous other animals, "in Paradise!" It was very conformable with the figure last mentioned; but what renders this, our third portrait, of peculiar interest, is, that it affords a date the words "Roelandt Savery fe. 1626," being inscribed on one corner. As the artist was born in 1576, he must have been twentythree years old when Van Neck's expedition returned to Holland; and as we are told by De Bry, in reference to the Mauritius, that "aliæ ibidem aves visæ sunt, quas walkvögel Batavi nominarunt, et unum secam in Hollandiam importarunt," it is It is difficult (observes our author) to assign a motive to the artist for thus magnifying an object quite possible that the portrait of this individual already sufficiently uncouth in appearance. Were may have been taken at the time, and afterwards it not for the discrepancy of dates, I should have recopied, both by himself and his nephew, in their conjectured that this was the identical "picture of a later pictures. Professor Owen leans to the belief strange fowle hong out upon a cloth," which at

tracted the notice of Sir Hamon Lestrange and his | however, reasonable grounds for believing that the friends, as they "walked London streets" in 1638; Creator has assigned to each class of animals a the delineations used by showmen being in general definite type or structure, from which He has more remarkable for attractiveness than veracity. never departed, even in the most exceptional or -P. 31. eccentric modifications of form."

We have now exhibited the leading facts which establish both the existence and extinction of this extraordinary bird: the existence proved by the recorded testimony of the earlier navigators, the few but peculiar portions of structure which still remain among us, and the vera effigies handed down by artists coeval with the period in which the Dodo lived: the non-existence, deduced from the general progress of events, and the absence of all knowledge of the species since the close of the seventeenth century, although the natural productions of the Mauritius are, in other respects, Why much better known to us now than then. any particular creature should have been so formed as to be unable to resist the progress of humanity, and should in consequence have died, it is not for "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy;" and of this we may feel assured, that if, as we doubt not, the Dodo is extinct, then it has served its end, whatever that might be.

us to say.

There is nothing imperfect in the productions of nature, although there are many organisms in which certain forms and faculties are less developed than in others. There are certainly, in particular groups, such things as rudimentary organs, which belong, as it were, not so much to the individual species, as to the general system which prevails in the larger and more comprehensive class to which such species belong; and in the majority of which these organs fulfil a frequent and obvious function, and so are very properly regarded as indispensable to the well-being of such as use them, But there are many examples in animal life which indicate that particular parts of structure remain, in certain species, forever in an undeveloped state. In respect to teeth, for instance, the Greenland whale may be regarded as a permanent suckling; for that huge creature having no occasion for these organs, they never pierce the gums, although in early life they are distinctly traceable in the dental groove of the jaws. So the Dodo was a kind of permanent nestling, covered with down instead of feathers, and with wings and tail (the oars and rudder of all aerial voyagers) so short and feeble as to be altogether inefficient for the purposes of flight. Why should such things be? We cannot say. The Can any one say why they should not be? question is both wide and deep, and they are most likely to plunge into it who can neither dive nor swim. We agree with Mr. Strickland, that these apparently anomalous facts are, in reality, indications of laws which the great Creator has been pleased to form and follow in the construction of unknown organized beings-inscriptions in an hieroglyphic, which we may rest assured must have a meaning, but of which we have as yet scarcely learned the alphabet. "There appear,

As to the true position of the Dodo in systematic ornithology, various opinions have been emitted by The majority seem to have placed various men. it in the great Rasorial or Gallinaceous order, as a component part of the family Struthionidæ, or ostrich tribe.

The bird in question, (says Mr. Vigors,) from every account which we have of its economy, and from the appearance of its head and foot, is decidedly gallinaceous; and, from the insufficiency of its wings for the purposes of flight, it may, with equal certainty, be pronounced to be of the Struthious structure. But the foot has a strong hind-toe, and, with the exception of its being more robust, in which character it still adheres to the Struthionidæ, it corresponds to the Linnæan genus Crax, that commences the succeeding family. The bird thus becomes osculant, and forms a strong point of junction between those two contiguous groups.―Linn. Trans., xiv. 484.

M. de Blainville (in Nouv. Ann. du Mus., iv. 24) contests this opinion by various arguments, which we cannot here report, and concludes that the Dodo is a raptorial bird, allied to the vultures. Mr. Broderip, in his article before referred to, sums up the discussion as follows:

If the picture in the British Museum, and the cut in Bontius, be faithful representations of a creature then living, to make such a bird of prey-a vulture, in the ordinary acceptation of the term-would be to set all the usual laws of adaptation at defiance. A vulture without wings! How was it to be fed? And not only without wings, but necessarily slow and heavy in progression on its clumsy feet. The Vulturida are, as we know, among the most active agents for removing the decomposing animal remains in tropical and inter-tropical climates, and they are provided with a prodigal development of wing, to waft them speedily to the spot tainted by the corrupt incumbrance. But no such powers of wing would be required by a bird appointed to clear away the decaying and decomposing masses of a luxuriant tropical vegetation-a kind of vulture for vegetable impurities, so to speak-and such an office would not be by any means inconsistent with comparative slowness of pedestrian motion.

Professor Owen, doubtless one of our greatest authorities, inclines towards an affinity with the vultures, and considers the Dodo as an extremely modified form of the raptorial order.

Devoid of the power of flight, it could have had small chance of obtaining food by preying upon the members of its own class; and if it did not exclusively subsist on dead and decaying organized matter, it most probably restricted its attacks to the class of reptiles, and to the littoral fishes, Crustacea, &c., which its well-developed back-toe and claw would enable it to seize, and hold with a firm gripe. -Transactions of the Zoological Society, iii., p. 331.

We confess that, setting aside various other unconformable features in the structure of the Dodo,