310 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 153. 



Me. Pikkkbton, at p. 83. supra, refers to a 

 passage of Froberville, from which it is evident 

 that a MS. journal by Pingre is still, or was re- 

 cently, in existence. As this MS. brings down the 

 existence of the Solitaire in Rodriguez to as late a 

 date -as 1761, it is evidently a very important and 

 valuable document; and I should feel greatly 

 obliged to any of your readers in Paris who can 

 ascertain its whereabouts, and give me any in- 

 formation respecting it. It will probably be found 

 among the archives of the Academie des Sciences, 

 as it is referred to in the Histoire of that Academy 

 for 1776, p. 37., as I have already noticed in The 

 Dodo and its Kindred,-^. 65. 



I have also to thank Mb. Pinkebton for guiding 

 me to a published account of the voyage of the 

 Sieur Dubois, and I shall take an early opportunity 

 of comparing the published volume with the MS. 

 belonging to the Zoological Society, and ascer- 

 taining their identity. 



At p. 172. supra, Mb. Pinkebton very justly 

 asks whether the "strange fovle" seen by Sir 

 Hamon L'Estrange in London, about 1638, may 

 not have been a Solitaire rather than a Dodo, — 

 as I and others had supposed. I had indeed long 

 been aware of the discrepancies between Sir 

 Hamon's description and the features of the true 

 Dodo, as handed down to us by other authorities, 

 but I merely attributed them to the extreme 

 vagueness which attaches to all natural history 

 descriptions of that period. I admit, however, 

 that it is quite as likely that the showman mis- 

 named the bird as that Sir Hamon misdescribed it; 

 and the affinities which it seems to present to the 

 Solitaire of Leguat may perhaps justify us in re- 

 jjjarding them as identical. The exhibition in 

 London of a living Solitaire is, however, quite as 

 interesting a fact as that of a living Dodo, and 

 equally makes us regret that Sir Hamon and his co- 

 temporaries did not give us more circumstantial 

 accounts respecting it. 



In concluding this notice of the communications 

 of others, will you allow me to answer one of my 

 own Queries, as to the existence of any additional 

 pictures of the Dodo, by referring to the interest- 

 ing painting which Mr. W. J. Broderip obligingly 

 exhibited last spring to the Zoological Society ? 

 Mr. B. has given a full account of it, accompanied 

 by an engraved yoc-siVH/Ze, in the Literary Gazette 

 for March 27, 1852. The picture is by Eoland 

 Savery, who has already supplied us with several 

 representations of this bird in different positions, 

 and has here given a back view of the Dodaers in 

 a highly characteristic and interesting attitude. 

 The animation of this design furnishes an addi- 

 tional presumption that Savery must have had 

 before him a living specimen, which served as the 

 model for his various pictures. 



I will conclude by })roposing two more Queries 

 on this subject, in addition to my former ten. 



Query 11. — In the Penny Magazine for Jan. 4, 

 1834, it is stated that Mr. lleinagle, the eminent 

 artist, had sent the editor a letter recording that 

 he one day discovered among the cimelia of the 

 British Museum "the head and beak, with the 

 short thick legs, of a bird, which instantly struck 

 him to be those of the Dodo. Mr. R. immediately 

 ran with the relics to Dr. Shaw, who in the end 

 concurred with him in considering the remains as 

 those of the Dodo, the existence of which seemed 

 to them as no longer questionable. Mr. R. has not 

 been able to learn what became of the fragments, 

 but they ought still to be somewhere in the British 

 Museum." If Mr. Reinagle's reminiscences were 

 correct, this statement is of great interest and im- 

 portance, and it is surprising that no attention has 

 been given to it. I therefore beg to ask whether 

 there is any reason to suppose that these relics 

 are still "somewhere in the British Museum" ? 

 N.B. Of course they have no reference to the well- 

 known Dodo's leg in the Bird Gallery, which has 

 never been lost sight of since the days of Grew, 



Query 12. — In Chambers^ Edinburgh Journal, 

 New Series, No. 400. p. 142. for August, 1851, it 

 is stated that the Society of Sciences at Haarlem 

 have offered a prize for any further information 

 concerning the Dodo. Perhaps Mb. van Maanen, 

 or some other of your Dutch correspondents, can 

 inform me whether this liberal offer has led to any 

 result ? H. E. Steickland. 



P.S. — Allow me to take this opportunity of 

 observing how greatly your excellent periodical 

 would gain In value if you could persuade 

 your correspondents more frequently to address 

 you by their real names instead of doing so 

 by assumed titles. This applies more especially 

 to those gentlemen who are so obliging as to 

 answer Queries. Their answers frequently re- 

 late to simple matters of fact, which no one need 

 be ashamed of communicating, and which would 

 often gain greatly in value if authenticated by a 

 real signature. It is surely a false modesty which 

 makes so many learned and well-informed gentle- 

 men assume an unmeaning nom-de-guerre in place 

 of their true denominations. 



I may mention as an example of the good effects 

 of authenticating information, the case of Loudon's 

 Magazine of Natural History. This periodical 

 passed in 1837 into the hands of Mr. Edward 

 Charlesworth, who, among other reforms, insisted 

 that his contributors should attach their real 

 names to their communications. By this simple 

 regulation he shook off a number of timid scrib- 

 blers, induced others to bestow more labour on 

 their communications, for the accuracy of which 

 the publication of their real signatures now ren- 

 dered them responsible; and he thus speedily 

 cleared his magazine from its former twaddle, and 

 raised it into a first-rate scientific publication. 



