406 Scientific Intelligence — Zoology. 



wanting in both) %^^ English inches, and that of Copenhagen 8yV 

 inches. The greatest diameter of the Oxford specimen, including 

 the skin which covers it, is '^■^q inches, and in the other, which is 

 without skin, Sy^^ inches. 



The cast of the foot of the Dodo, which I likewise place in the 

 Museum, is taken from the specimen in the British Museum. It is 

 supposed to be the same that Clusius observed before 1605 in the 

 collection of Professor Pauw at Leyden, as coming from the Island 

 of Mauritius. As it had been announced that a living Dodo was 

 embarked in 1598 by the Dutch, and as Clusius, in 1605, was un- 

 able to prove that an animal had been brought into the country 

 alive, it is inferred that the bird embarked at the Mauritius in 1598 

 died on its way to Holland, and that it was from it the foot in 

 Pauw's possession was obtained. The report of a Dodo having been 

 transported from the Mauritius to Holland, has been alluded to 

 only by De Brys, and it cannot therefore be considered as altogether 

 authentic. 



The foot preserved at Oxford, and which, as well as the head of 

 the Dodo, is from the Tradescant museum, has been stripped of its 

 skin by Dr Kidd, in such a manner that the bones, ligaments, and 

 nerves, can now be studied. I have taken five different photographic 

 views of it, which are now in the process of engraving. 



In the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, there is a large drawing 

 of a Dodo, taken from nature, for which we are indebted to John 

 Savery. Little attention has been hitherto paid to this. I have 

 had a sketch carefully made and coloured like the original. This 

 figure is particularly important on account of the feathers, wings, 

 and tail ; for the head and feet do not appear to be accurately de- 

 signed. Below it there is a frog and a i^"^ cryptogamous plants 

 which seem to be in allusion to its kind of food. This figure has 

 been given by M. W, C. Darby to Dr Kidd, whose lectures he at- 

 tended, while I examined the Ashmolean Museum in 1814, in com- 

 pany with the Doctor. 



John Savery may have had an opportunity in 1651 of seeing a 

 living Dodo, or at least a sketch made from nature, and by means of 

 which he completed his figure. By a manuscript notice preserved 

 in the British Museum, and which was obtained from L'Estrange, 

 we learn with certainty that in the year 1638, a living Dodo was 

 exhibited for money in London, in a house before which a figure of 

 the bird was represented on canvass. At all events, a stuffed speci- 

 men is mentioned in 1651 in the catalogue of Tradescant's collec- 

 tion printed in 1656, but drawn up some years before, in 1652, by 

 Drs Wharton and Ashmole, In this catalogue we find, at page 4, 

 the Dodo indicated under the name of Dodar (which ought to have 

 been Dodo-aers). It is from this specimen, conveyed in 1682 by 

 Ashmole to Oxford, where it was destroyed by vermin, and conse- 

 quently lost in 1756, that the foot and head so fortunately preserved 



