373 



DODO. 



DODO. 



374 



call the Dodo by thia name, and what the size of a halfpenny roll was 

 in 1651 are difficulties. 



There is a tract in the Ashmolean Museum of which there are two 

 editions, the first without a date, the second printed in London 1665. 

 It is a catalogue of rarities to be seen at ' the musique house at the 

 west end of Paules,' by R. H. alias Forges, Gentleman. Here at p. 11 

 we find "A Dodo's Leg ; it is a bird that cannot fly." This is probably 

 the specimen that passed into the possession of the Royal Society, and 

 was described by Grew. 



The last of Mr. Strickland's additions is a manuscript, entitled 

 ' A coppey of Mr. Benj. Harry's Journall when he was chief mate of 

 the Shippe Berkley Castle, Captn. Wm. Talbot then Commander on a 

 voyage to the Coste and Bay, 1679, which voyage they wintered at 

 the Maurisahes.' He speaks of -the "Dodos, whose" flesh is very 

 hard." 



This seems to be the last notice of the Dodo. " That the destruc- 

 tion of the Dodos," says Mr. Strickland, " was completed by 1693 

 may be inferred from the narrative of Leguat, who in that year 

 remained several months in Mauritius, and enumerates its animal 

 productions at some length, but makes no mention whatever of 

 Dodos." 



M. de Blainville says that at a public dinner at the Mauritius in 1816 

 several persons were present from 70 to 90 years old, who had no 

 knowledge of such a bird from recollection or tradition. Mr. J. V. 

 Thompson also, who resided for some years in Mauritius and Mada- 

 gascar previous to 1816, states that no more traces of the existence of 

 the Dodo could then be found than of the truth of the tale of Paul 

 and Virginia, although a very general idea prevailed aa to the reality 

 of both. 



Since the publication of the ' Penny Cyclopaedia ' the pictorial 

 evidence of the existence and characters of this bird has also in- 

 creased. In the royal collection of the Hague is a painting by Roland 

 Savery, which is regarded as one of that master's chef d'oeuvres. It 

 represents Orpheus charming the animal creation with his music, and 

 among innumerable birds and beasts the clumsy Dodo is represented 

 aa spell-bound by the lyric bard. This bird was discovered in this 

 picture by Professor Owen in 1838. 



" Whilst at the Hague," writes the professor to Mr. Broderip, " in 

 the summer of 1838, I was much struck with the minuteness and 

 accuracy with which the exotic species of animals had been painted 

 by Savery and Breughel in such subjects as Paradise, Orpheus charm- 

 ing the Beasts, &c., in which scope was allowed for grouping together 

 a great variety of animals. Understanding that the celebrated mena- 

 gerie of Prince Maurice had afforded the living models to these artists, 

 I sat down one day before Savery's Orpheus and the Beasts, to make 

 a list of the species which the picture sufficiently evinced that the 

 artist had had the opportunity to study alive. Judge of my surprise 

 and pleasure in detecting in a dark corner of the picture (which is 

 badly hung between two windows) the Dodo, beautifully finished, 

 showing for example, though but three inches long, the auricular 

 circle of feathers, the scutation of the tarsi, and the loose structure 

 of the caudal plumes. In the number and proportions of the toes, 

 and in general form, it accords with Edwards's oil painting in the 

 British Museum ; and I conclude that the miniature must have been 

 copied from the study of a living bird, which it is most probable 

 formed part of the Mauritian menagerie. 



" The bird is standing in profile, with a lizard at its feet. Not any 

 of the Dutch naturalists to whom I applied for information respecting 

 the picture, the artist, and his subjects, seemed to be aware of the 

 existence of this evidence of the Dodo in the Hague collection. 



" I think I told you that my friend Professor Eschricht of Copen- 

 hagen had written to inform me that the skull of a Dodo had been 

 lately discovered in the museum at Copenhagen : it had before formed 

 part of the museum of the Duke of Gottorp." 



In 1845 Mr. Strickland was examining Roland Savery's paintings at 

 Berlin. " Among them," he says, " I found one which represents 

 numerous animals in Paradise, one of which is a Dodo of about the 

 same size and in nearly the same attitude as the one last mentioned. 

 This picture was painted in 1626. Another picture of the Dodo, also 

 by Roland Savery, date 1628, exists in the imperial collection of the 

 Bellvedere at Vienna. The attitude is very different from that in the 

 other pictures, giving the impression that Savery must have studied 

 this bird from living specimens, and probably the one exhibited in 

 London sat to Savery for his portraits. 



The only existing recent remains attributed to the Dodo are a leg 

 in the British Museum, and a head (a cast of which is in Brit. Mus.), and 

 a leg in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, the relics of Tradesoant's 

 bird/and the head referred to by Professor Owen. Whether the leg 

 formerly in the museum of Pauw be that at present in the British 

 Museum may be perhaps doubtful, though we think with Dr. Gray 

 that they are probably identical ; but that the specimen in the British 

 Museum did not belong to Tradeecant's specimen is clear, for it existed 

 in the collection belonging to the Royal Society when Tradescant's 

 ' Dodar' was complete. In the 'Annales des Sciences' (torn. xxi. 

 p. 103, Sept. 1830) will be found an account of an assemblage of fossil 

 bones, then recently discovered under a bed of lava in the Isle of 

 France (Mauritius), and sent to the Paris Museum. They almost all 

 belonged to a large living species of land-tortoise, called Teetwto 



Indica, but amongst them were the head, sternum, aud humerus 

 of the Dodo. " M. Cuvier," adds Sir Charles Lyell in his ' Prin- 

 iples of Geology,' " showed me these valuable remains at Paris, and 

 assured me that they left no doubt in his mind that the huge bird 

 was one of the gallinaceous tribe." 



Head of Dodo (from cast of Oxford specimen). 



Foot of Dodo (specimen in the British Museum). 



" Let us now endeavour," says Mr. Strickland, " to combine into 

 one view the results of the historical, pictorial, and anatomical data 

 which we possess respecting the Dodo. 



" We must figure it to ourselves as a massive clumsy bird, ungraceful 

 in its form, and with a slow waddling motion. We cannot form a 

 better idea of it than by imagining a young duck or gosling enlarged 

 to the dimensions of a swan. It affords one of those cases, of which 

 we have many examples in zoology, where a species, or a part of the 

 organs in a species, remains permanently undeveloped or in an infan- 

 tine state. Such a condition has reference to peculiarities in the mode 

 of life of the animal, which render certain organs unnecessary ; aud 

 they therefore are retained through life in an imperfect state, instead 

 of attaining that fully-developed condition which marks the mature 

 age of the generality of animals. The Greenland Whale, for instance, 

 may be called a permanent suckling ; having no occasion for teeth 

 the teeth 'never penetrate the gums, though in youth they are dis- 

 tinctly traceable in the dental groove of the jaws. The Proteus again 

 is a permanent tadpole, destined to inhabit the waters which fill 

 subterranean caverns ; the gills which in other batrachian reptiles are 

 cast off as the animal approaches maturity are here retained through 

 life, while the eyes are mere subcutaneous specks, incapable of 

 contributing to the sense of vision. And, lastly (not to multiply 

 examples), the Dodo is (or rather was) a permanent nestling, clothed 

 with down instead of feathers, and with the wings and tail so short 

 and feeble as to be utterly unsubservient to flight. It may appear at 

 first sight difficult to account for the presence of organs which are 

 practically useless. Why, it may be asked, does the whale possess 

 the germs of teeth which are never used for mastication ? Why has 

 the proteus eyes, when he is especially created to dwell in darkness ? 

 and why was the dodo endowed with wings at all, when those wing.s 

 were useless for locomotion ? This question is too wide and too deep 

 to plunge into at present. I will merely observe that these apparently 

 anomalous facts are really the indications of laws which the Creator 

 has been pleased to follow in the construction of organised beings. 

 They are inscriptions in an unknown hieroglyphic, which we are quite 

 sure mean something, but of which we have scarcely begun to master 

 the alphabet. There appear however reasonable grounds for believing 

 that the Creator has assigned to each class of animals a definite type, 

 or structure, from which he has never departed, even in the most 

 exceptional or eccentric modifications of form. Thus if we suppose, 

 for instance, that the abstract idea of a mammal implied the presence 

 of wings, we may then comprehend why in the whale, the proteus, 

 and the dodo, these organs are merely suppressed, and not wholly 

 annihilated. And let us beware of attributing anything like imper- 

 fection to these anomalous organisms, however deficient they may bo 

 in those complicated structures which we so much admire in other 

 creatures. Each animal and plant has received its peculiar organisa- 

 tion for the purpose, not of exciting the admiration of other beings, 

 but of sustaining its own existence. Its perfection therefore consists, 

 not in the number or complication of its organs, but in the adaptation 

 of its whole structure to the external circumstances in which it is 

 destined to live, and in this point of view we shall find that every 

 department of the organic creation is equally perfect ; the humblest 

 animalcule, or the simplest Confena, being as completely organised 

 with reference to its appropriate habitat and its destined functions 



