Scientific Intelligence — Zoology, 407 



have been obtained. It may be presumed that the Dodo which was 

 exhibited alive in London in 1638 had been obtained after its death 

 by the second Tradescant for the museum of his father (who died in 

 1 638) ; so that the existing head and foot in the Ashmolean Museum 

 are the same as those which L' Estrange saw in the living bird in 

 London. 



The figure of the Dodo so often cited and copied, and taken from 

 Sloane's drawings in the British Museum (not made by Edwards, 

 as Mr Owen affirms), does not appear to me to be taken from nature. 

 Besides the Dodo, we there find parroquets also, and other birds or 

 animals. Neither date nor artist are mentioned, and I consequently 

 consider them as without value. But, on the other hand, I thought 

 it proper to have an exact and coloured copy of a small picture (five 

 inches in height at the most) in the Royal Museum at the Hague, 

 representing a Dodo, which is to be seen among the well known pic- 

 tures of Koeland Savery, who died in 1639, which represents Or- 

 pheus charming animals, Boeland Savery was the uncle of John 

 Savery mentioned above. There are two other similar pictures by 

 him, as well as others filled with animals (the Terrestrial Paradise, 

 Sortie de VArche, &c.) which are worthy of being examined by 

 zoologists. The living Dodo shewn in London in 1638 had very 

 likely been conveyed to Holland, and if this individual had been ob- 

 served before by R. Savery, and if it be the same that passed into 

 the Tradescant Museum after its death, we have, from the hand of 

 this skilful animal-painter, the general aspect, colour, &c. of the 

 Dodo ; while the head and the osseous structure, and the nerves of 

 the feet, are seen in the Oxford specimen, of which I have brought 

 casts, drawings, and photographic representations. 



M. Hamel is about to have a model of a Dodo executed, to be 

 painted according to R. Savery's picture, and which he means to 

 present to the Academy as soon as comi^\eted.—L^ Institute No. 709, 

 p. 252. 



16. Commercial value of Insects. — The importance of insects, com- 

 mercially speaking, is scarcely ever thought of. Great Britian does 

 not pay less than 1,000,000 of dollars annually for the dried car- 

 cases of the tiny insect, the cochineal ; and another Indian insect, 

 which affords, by puncturing particular trees, Lac, is scarcely less 

 valuable. More than 1,500,000 of human beings derive their sole 

 support from the culture and manufacture of silk ; and the silkworm 

 alone creates an annual circulating medium of nearly 200,000,000 

 of dollars ; 500,000 dollai*s are annually spent in England alone for 

 foreign honey ; at least, 10,000 cwt. of wax is imported into that 

 country every year. Then there are the gall-nuts of commerce, used 

 for dyeing and making ink, &c. ; while the cantharides, or Spanish 

 fly, is an absolute indispensable in materia medica. — Boston Trans- 

 cript, AthencGum, No. 978, p. 770. 



