324 THE DODO. 



remember not how far the keeper was questioned herein, 

 yet I am confident that afterwards shee cast them all 

 agayne." 



Whether this bird was, however, after all a real Dodo 

 is very questionable ; for although there is no doubt of 

 its having been in former times abundant in some of the 

 islands of the Indian Ocean, it is supposed to have long- 

 ago ceased to exist, and is therefore generally considered 

 by naturalists as extinct a species as those animals whose 

 bones are occasionally found in a fossil state, in rocks 

 and caves. 



