554 Mr. Duncan on the Dodo. 



EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES. 



Art. LXIII. A summary review of the authorities on 

 which naturalists are justified in believing that the 

 Dodo, Didus ineptus, Linn., Z€as a Bird existing in the 

 Isle of France, or the neighbouring islands, until a 

 recent period. By J. S. Duncan, Esq,, New College, 

 Oxford, 



The uncertainty and ambiguity attending the descriptions of 

 natural objects by writers who lived before the precise modes 

 now used of identifying and describing them had been devised, 

 apply in a great degree to the accounts which have been trans- 

 mitted to us, by some of the older naturalists, of the Bird variously 

 named by them Didus, Dodar, and Dodo. And this doubtful 

 character of their relations is increased by the circumstance that 

 no succeeding voyagers have seen this bird, and that throughout 

 the museums of Europe, the only specimens of it stated to be pre- 



