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LXIX. Notices respecting New Books. 



The Dodo and its Kindred ; or the History, Affinities, and Osteology 

 of the Dodo, Solitaire, and other extinct Birds of the islands Mau- 

 ritius, Rodriguez and Bourbon. By H. E. Strickland, M.A., 

 F.G.S., President of the Ashmolean Society, #c. ; and A. G. Mel- 

 ville, M.D., Edin., M.R.C.S. London : Reeve, Benham and 

 Reeve, 8 King William Street, Strand. 1848. 



AMONG the multitude of sublime inquiries embraced by natural 

 science, there is none more interesting than that of the duration 

 of species of animated beings ; none more attractive, through the 

 variety of knowledge demanded for a reasonable theory of the intro* 

 duction, continuance, and withdrawal of species, and of their func- 

 tions as active agents or passive subjects in the existing ceconomy 

 of life ; and none more impressively demonstrative of the infinite 

 resources of creative intelligence. 



Geology makes known to us a succession of epochs during which 

 there flourished, not only particular species of animals and plants, 

 but also certain genera and families, which, after performing the 

 functions allotted to them during a space of time immeasurable by 

 us, have finally disappeared, and have been succeeded by other and 

 new races as perfectly adapted as their predecessors to the physical 

 conditions under which they were placed. In these vast and myste- 

 rious operations we can read and, to a certain degree, comprehend 

 the changes of physical condition, by means of our knowledge of the 

 structure of these ancient extinct forms when compared with their 

 recent analogues ; thus deriving a reasonable inference regarding 

 the external circumstances — the existence of land, of sea or of fresh- 

 water, of heat, light and air, and of the nature and probable variety 

 of minor and subservient beings. 



The work before us relates to beings which have lived almost in 

 our own day, and have disappeared through causes and under cir- 

 cumstances altogether different to those just referred to. Their ex- 

 tinction has been brought about through the agency of a species 

 whose power and predominance over all others is the effect of the 

 combination of a moral and higher intellectual nature, with an amount 

 of activity and physical strength, inferior to those of many con- 

 temporary species. The beings referred to, so conspicuous from 

 their size, so defenceless, and so incapable of escaping the assaults of 

 more powerful and predacious species, could only be adapted to the 

 peaceful security of those sunny isles abounding in the richest pro- 

 fusion of vegetable life, where successive generations of these happy 

 birds had continued in the undisturbed enjoyment of an indolent and 

 luxurious life, for which their heavy and bloated forms were only 

 adapted. 



Notwithstanding the direct testimony of the first discoverers of 

 these birds, and the evidence of numerous others who had either seen 

 them in their native islands or had beheld specimens brought to 

 Europe, and whose descriptions and figures were published to the 



