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XIV. Observations on the Dodo (Didus ineptus, Linn.) ; an Appendix to the foregoing 

 Memoir on the Dinornis. By Professor Owen, F.R.S., Z.S. &ic. 



Read July 14, 1846. 



± HE interest in the history of the brevipennate terrestrial Birds, which the special in- 

 vestigation of the remains of those of New Zealand has excited, induces me to subjoin 

 a few observations which I made during a recent visit to Oxford, on the famous head 

 and foot of the Dodo preserved in the Ashmolean Museum of that University. 



The Dodo's skull differs from that of any species of Vulturidce, or any Raptorial Bird, 

 in the greater elevation of the frontal bones above the cerebral hemispheres, and in the 

 sudden sinking of the inter-orbital and nasal region of the forehead ; in the rapid com- 

 pression of the beak anterior to the orbits ; in the elongation of the compressed mandi- 

 bles, and in the depth and direction of the sloping symphysis of the lower jaw. 



The eyes of the Dodo are very small compared with those of the Vulturidce or other 

 Raptores. The external ears are narrow vertical subelliptic apertures, situated between 

 the mastoid prominences and the angular processes of the lower jaw : each aperture is 

 ten lines long and four lines wide. All traces of the auricular circle of feathers is lost. 

 The nostrils (PI. XXXVIII. fig. 5, n), it is true, pierce the cere, but are more advanced 

 in position ; this however seems essentially to depend upon the excessive elongation 

 of the basal part of the upper mandible before the commencement of the uncinated 

 extremity : the nostrils are pierced near the commencement of this uncinated part as in 

 the Vulturidce, but are nearer the lower border of the mandible in the Dodo. 



The resemblance between the skull of the Dodo and that of the Albatros is chiefly 

 in the compression and prolongation of the curved mandibles ; there are no traces in 

 the Dodo of the hexagonal space which marks the upper surface of the cranium of the 

 Albatros, so well-defined there by the two supra-occipital ridges behind, the two tem- 

 poral ridges at the sides, and the two converging posterior boundaries of the supra- 

 orbital glandular fossae in front. There is no sudden depression of the frontal region 

 in the skull of the Albatros : the nostrils are near the upper surface of the basal third 

 of the beak in the Albatros, and the Dodo's cranium is thrice as broad in proportion 

 to the breadth of the mid-part of the mandible as in that of the Albatros. 



More satisfactory evidence of the afiinities of the Dodo may be obtained from a com- 

 parison of the bones of the foot, which have recently been very skilfully and judiciously 

 exposed by Dr. Kidd, the learned and accomplished Regius Professor of Physic, Oxford, 

 and formerly Reader in Anatomy in the same University. 



