ANIMALS RECENTLY EXTINCT. 033 



For a better idea of the appearance of the dodo we are indebted to 

 the pictures of Koelandt Savary and his nephew John, Dutch artists 

 of the iirst half of the 17th century, from whose paintings* we gather 

 that the dodo was a heavy-bodied, short legged bird, with a dispropor- 

 tionately large head, and huge, formidable-looking hooked bill. The 

 body was sparingly clad in loose feathers, the wing feathers alone being 

 still", the tail resembling a small feather duster. The general color, as 

 noted by De Bry, was gray, or blackish, but the breast seems to have 

 been brown, and the wings and tail yellowish, or dirty white. The 

 bird, so Cause tells us, laid a single egg " the size of a half-penny roll, in 

 a nest made of herbs heaped together," the somewhat indefinite size 

 ascribed to the egg being qualified later on by comparison with that 

 of the great white pelican {Pelecanus onocrotahts), which it was said to 

 resemble in size. Not being acquainted with mankind the birds of 

 Mauritius, like those of other uninhabited islands, were at first ex- 

 tremely tame, but the dodo seems to have been not only unsuspicious 

 but stupid into the bargain, a fact that rendered its extermination all 

 the easier. It appears to have been customary upon the discovery of 

 any new and edible animal, to give thanks to Providence and straight- 

 way proceed to slaughter the creature, but in the case of the dodo the 

 thanks were omitted, although the exterminating process was at once 

 begun. 



Although the discoverers of the bird seem to have thought poorly of 

 its gastronomic qualities, and indeed it would hardly compare favor- 

 ably with doves, tortoises, turtles, and the abundant fishes of Mauri- 

 tius, the next vessel to reach this isle of plenty made sad havoc with 

 the unfortunate dodos. This was the ship of one William Van West 

 Zannen, who stopped there in 1601, and seems to have made things 

 very lively for all living creatures. He writes that " The dodos, with 

 their round sterns (for they were well fattened), were also obliged to turn 

 tail ; everything that could move was in a bustle; the fish which had 

 lived in peace for many a year were pursued into the deepest water 

 pool." One day Zaunen's crew took twenty-four dodos, on another 

 twenty, " so large and heavy that they could not eat any two of them 

 for dinner." The abundance of game is shown by the fact that five men 

 not only captured twenty dodos in a day, but also some thirty other 

 birds,t and with a good supply salted down, Van Zannen sailed away. 

 Other Dutch ships followed in Van Zaunen's wake, feasted on tortoise 

 and dodo, and, salting down a store, departed, leaving the ranks of the 

 dodos sadly depleted. The last notice of the living Dodo occurs in a 



* These were made from birds brought alive to Holland. 



t This day's work seems to have inspired the chronicler's muse, for lie records it in 

 a four- line poem, translated by Dr. Strickland: 



"For food the seamen hunt the nosh of feathered fowl. 



They tap the palms, the round-sterned dodos they destroy: 



The parrot's life they spare, that he may scream and howl, 



And thus his fellows to imprisonment decoy." 



