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 Religio Veterum 

 Persarum, and by the statement of Ray." 



(226.) The additions made to this private museum 

 of the Tradescants by Ashinole 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 



