396 QBALLATOEES, OE WADING BIEDS. 



of the producer. The natives call the bird Kim. They used 

 at one time to hunt them very perseveringly, as much for their 

 flesh as for their feathers, which they used in making mats. Now 

 they have renounced this work, the profits not compensating for 

 the fatigue which it entailed. Day by day it is becoming more 

 rare and difficult to procure. The Zoological Society of London 

 has three specimens. 



EXTINCT BREVIPENN^E. 



The order of the Brevipennce may be held to embrace some 

 birds which have now disappeared from the surface of the globe, 

 but which are supposed to be contemporaneous with Man. The 

 remains which are met with in quite modern alluvium scarcely 

 admit of any doubt in this respect. 



In the first rank of extinct birds we may place the DODO 

 (Didus ineptus, Linn.), Fig. 158, which was indigenous to the 

 Mauritius and the Isle of France, where it used to be abundant, 

 if we may believe the testimony of the companions of Yasco de 

 Gama, who visited there in 1497. At the end of the seven- 

 teenth century some of them still existed. Former travellers have 

 described them; and these accounts, with skeletons and an oil- 

 painting in the British Museum, are the only items of informa- 

 tion which we possess. 



The Dodo was a fat and heavy bird, and weighed not less than 

 fifty pounds. This portly body was supported on short legs, and 

 provided with ridiculously small wings, making it equally in- 

 capable of running and flying, dooming the bird to a rapid destruc- 

 tion. Lastly and principally, it had a stupid physiognomy, but- 

 little calculated to conciliate the sympathies of the observer. Its 

 rear was decorated with three or four curly feathers, making 

 a pretence of a tail, whilst in front it presented an enormous 

 curved bill, which occupied nearly the whole of the head. 



The Dodo did not even possess the merit of being useful after its 

 death, for its flesh was disagreeable and of a bad flavour. On the 

 whole, there is not much reason to regret its extinction. 



In the island of Madagascar fossil eggs and bones were found 

 of a bird belonging to a species probably extinct, the proportions 



