AVES— DODO. 



G83 



articulated exteriorly ; claws thick and sharp ; wings improper for flight. 

 There are only two birds known of this order; the apteryx, a bird inhabiting 

 New Zealand, and the dodo 



THE DODO. 1 



Swiftness is generally considered as the peculiar attribute of birds ; but 

 the dodo, instead of exciting that idea by its appearance, seems to strike the 

 imagination as a thing the most unwieldy and inactive of all nature. Its 

 body is massive, almost cubical, and covered with gray feathers ; it is just 

 barely supported upon two short thick legs like pillars. The neck, thick 

 and pursy, is joined to the head, which consists of two great chaps, that open 

 far behind the eyes, which are large, black, and prominent ; so that the 

 animal, when it gapes, seems to be all mouth. The bill, therefore, is of an 

 extraordinary length, not flat and broad, but thick, and of a bluish white, 

 sharp at the end, and each chap crooked in opposite directions. From all 

 this, results a stupid and voracious physiognomy ; which is still more 

 increased by a bordering of feathers round the root of the beak, and which 

 give the appearance of a hood or cowl. The dodo is furnished with wings, 

 covered with soft ash-colored feathers ; but they are too short to assist it in 

 flying. It is furnished with a tail, and with a few small curled feathers ; 



1 Didus ineptus, Lin. The characteristics of the genus Didus are a bill long 1 , stout, 

 broad, compressed; upper mandible bent at the point, transversely furrowed; lower 

 mandible straight, gibbovs, bent upwards at the point ; nostrils in the middle of the bill, 

 placed obliquely in a furrow ; tarsus short ; three toes before, divided, the hind toe short, 

 claws short, bent ; wings incapable of flight. 



