EXTINCT ANIMALS 



extinct almost as soon as it became known. It 

 was found in the island of Mauritius by the 

 earlier explorers, first the Portuguese and then 

 the Dutch. The bird was incapable of flying, 



Fig. 16. — Reproduction of a picture of the Dodo, painted by 

 Roland Savery from life, in 1626. The bird was about 

 three feet long from Ijeak to tail. 



as it was too fat for its little wings to lift it from 

 the ground. It was knocked on the head by 

 the sailors and worried by the pigs they intro- 

 duced, and was soon exterminated. About the 

 beginning of the seventeenth century, between 



26 



