474, Miscellaneous. 
to London, where many of them were sold by auction, which has 
enabled me to procure an important series of specimens, by means 
of which the skeleton could be almost entirely restored ; and I now 
request permission to bring before the Academy the results furnished 
by the study of these objects. 
The differences of opinion which exist among zoologists with re- 
gard to the natural affinities of the Dodo, sufficiently indicate the 
difficulties they have met with in studying the remains of this bird. 
Linné and Latham thought that it should be placed along with the 
Ostriches ; Cuvier approximated it to the Penguins; De Blainville 
believed that it should be classed in the order Raptores, beside the 
Vultures ; Brandt regarded it as having more affinity to the Plovers ; 
and, finally, Reinhardt discovered characters of great resemblance to 
the Pigeons. So long as only the external form was taken into 
consideration, the questions thus raised could not be solved. But in 
1847 Messrs. Strickland and Melville had the opportunity of studying 
the bony parts contained in the fragments of feet and in the head of 
the Dodo preserved at Oxford, and from this examination they con- 
cluded that the bird, notwithstanding its singular form, belonged to 
the family of the Columbidee—an opinion which was shared by most 
ornithologists, and which Professor Owen has recently adopted in 
consequence of his examination of the bones lately discovered in the 
Mauritius. According to this illustrious anatomist, the Dodo would 
belong to the group of Columbidee, and the peculiarities of structure 
observed in it, although very considerable, would be of the rank of 
those which may be regarded as dependent on the adaptation of a 
bird of this type to an essentially terrestrial mode of life and to a 
special diet. One of tle most remarkable portions of the skeleton 
of the Dodo is the pelvis; and if Linné, Cuvier, Blainville, and 
Brandt had been acquainted with this part of the skeleton, they cer- 
tainly would not have expressed the opinions which I have indicated 
above. The pelvic apparatus of this bird, although in some respects 
resembling that of the Columbidee, is distinguished therefrom by 
anatomical characters of great importance ; and these differences are 
not of the kind observed in the terrestrial species when compared 
with the best fliers among the Pigeons. The pelvis is not con- 
structed in the same manner in any bird now living. 
Nor are the peculiarities in the structure of the sternal apparatus 
any better explained by the hypothesis of the adaptation of the 
organic type of the Columbide to an essentially terrestrial mode of 
life. At the first glance one is struck by the slightness of its re- 
semblance to that of the Pigeons, and by its general form, which 
reminds us of the sternum of the Rhea more than that of any other 
bird—although it cannot be assimilated to the sternum of a Struthious 
bird, on account of the existence of a keel. 
The modifications of the sternum which correspond with essen- 
tially terrestrial habits, or even with a complete incapability of flight, 
are of two kinds: sometimes the median keel for the insertion of 
the great pectoral muscles is diminished and disappears completely 
without any atrophy of the lateral portions of the sternal shield, as 
