322 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
imposition contrived to deceive Tradescant; the 
other, the head of the dodo, or dodar, is the sole 
specimen existing of a bird larger than a swan, 
presented, probably by Mr. Thomas Herbert, to 
Tradescant, and brought by him from the island of 
Mauritius, where only it is reported to have been 
ever seen, and where it certainly does not now exist: 
That the stuffed skin was in the Tradescantian 
collection is proved by the catalogue, and by the 
incidental mention of it in Hyde's feligio Veterum 
Persarum, and by the statement of Ray.” 
(226.) The additions made to this private museum 
of the Tradescants hy Ashmole were chiefly books. 
Borlace and Plot,— names connected with some of 
our most valuable county histories, — subsequently 
contributed to augment the foundation laid by 
Ashmole: and although a large portion of the 
animal preparations have long since crumbled into 
dust, the relics that remain are both interesting 
and valuable. The funds, however, left to maintain 
and enlarge this repository, are poor and inadequate. 
Ashmole left absolutely nothing to support the 
museum, while the profit of exhibition, ordained by 
his bequest, has rarely exceeded 30/. per annum. 
Dr. Rawlinson bequeathed 75/. to the keeper; but 
under the singular conditions that he should be an 
Englishman, not in orders, not a member of the 
Royal or Antiquarian Societies, &c. It is not im- 
probable that the worthy Doctor, when he laid down 
these rules, shrewdly suspected that, without them, 
the place would become a sinecure given to some 
titled member of the university, who might have 
employed an illiterate deputy to perform that which 
