Mr. H. E. Strickland on the Dodo and its Kindred. 337 
The length of this bone bemg so nearly that of the Dodo’s 
metatarsus, we are enabled to see at a glance those great dif- 
ferences in its shape and proportions, which seem to justify us 
in asserting the Solitaire to have been generically, as well as 
specifically, distinct from the Dodo. The shaft of the bone is 
longer, both absolutely and proportionally, more slender, and 
less expanded at both extremities ; all which characters are in- 
dicative of greater speed and activity. There are also several 
minor distinctions which Dr. Melville has pomted out (Dodo 
and its Kindred, p. 117), and which are beautifully exhibited in 
the specimen before us. Yet notwithstanding these distinctions, 
there is no disputing the very close affinity between the two 
birds to which these osseous fragments belong. The metatarsi 
of the Dodo and of the Solitaire are both distinguished by the 
expansion of the trochlear extremity, the elongation of the inter- 
nal trochlea, the form and development of the calcaneal processes 
and of the buttress or ridge connected with them, with other 
characters indicative of near affinity. 
The characters alluded to moreover confirm in the strongest 
manner the affinity of both these birds to the Co/lumbide or 
Pigeons. If the bone before us were now discovered for the first 
time, no comparative anatomist could hesitate in pronouncing it 
to belong to a gigantic species of Pigeon. I need not repeat the 
arguments which we have already adduced on this head, but wiil 
merely point out the single character, peculiar to the Pigeons and 
to the allied group of Péerocles, that the calcaneal canal which 
transmits the tendons of the flexor perforans digitorum, passes on 
the outside of the posterior ridge or buttress, whereas in Galli- 
naceous and other birds it passes on the znszde of that ridge. 
7. Dr. Cabot’s views of Dodo-affinity identical with our own.— 
I gladly take this opportunity of doing justice to a short but able 
article by Dr. Cabot, published at the commencement of 1848 
in the ‘ Boston Journal of Natural History,’ vol. v. p. 490. This 
paper has only lately come into my hands, and it is hardly 
necessary to add, that Dr. Cabot’s conclusions as to the affinities 
of the Dodo were arrived at quite independently of those simul- 
taneously deduced by Dr. Melville and myself in this country. 
Under these circumstances it 1s gratifying to find that Dr. Cabot, 
although the data on which he reasoned were far less complete 
than our own, having only seen casts of the external parts of the 
Dodo’s head and foot, has arrived at precisely the same conclu- 
sion as ourselves, viz. that “The Dodo was a gigantic Pigeon,” 
and that it most nearly approached the genus Teron (Vinago). 
If the coherence of independent witnesses be any test of truth, 
we could hardly have had a stronger confirmation of the sound- 
Ann. & Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 2. Vol. iv. 23 
