377 



DODO. 



DODO. 



378 



7. The form, the number, and the disposition of the toes, as well as 

 the force and curvature of the claws, indicate a bird, of that family at 

 least as much as a Gallinaceous Bird. 



8. The scaly system of the tarsi and of the toes more resembles 

 also what is found in Cathartes than what is observed in the Gallina- 

 ceous Birds. 



9. The kind of Jabot at the root of the neck, and even the muscular 

 stomach, are found in one order as well as in the other. 



10. Lastly, M. de Blainville notices the absence of the spur 

 (1'ergot), which he remarks is nearly characteristic of the Gallinaceous 

 Birds. 



M. de Blainville, after expressing a hope that both the Aye-Aye 

 (Chnromtjf, which has not been seen a second time since the days of 

 Sonnerat) and the Dodo may be yet recovered in the interior of Mada- 

 gascar, thus concludes his memoir : 



"1. There ezist in the English collections traces of at least three 

 individuals of a large species of walking bird (oiseau marcheur), to 

 which has been given the name of Dodo, Dronte, Didua ineptus. 



" 2. These traces exist in Europe since the epoch when the Dutch 

 began to take part in the discovery of the passage to the East Indies 

 by the Cape of Good Hope, that is to say, about 1594. 



" 3. The name of Dodo is employed for the firft time by Herbert, 

 that of Dronte by Piso, but without its being possible to arrive at the 

 origin and etymology of these denominations. 



" 4. The country of this bird is the Isle of France ; there being 

 nothing to prove positively that it has been found either at Bourbon 

 or at Fernandez, as has been thought, owing to the confusion, no 

 doubt, between the Dodo and Solitaire of Leguat. 



" 5. The Dronte should be approximated to or even placed in the 

 order of Rapacious Birds, near the vultures, rather than in that of the 

 Gallinaceous Birds ; and, for stronger reasons, rather than among the 

 Grallatora (Echassiers), or near the Penguins (Manchots). 



" 6. It is by no means certain that this bird has disappeared from 

 the number of living animals. If this is possible in the case of the 

 Isle of France, it is not probable in the case of Madagascar, the pro- 

 ductions of which are so little known, and which belongs, up to a 

 certain point, to the same archipelago. 



" There remains another question to discuss, namely, whether the 

 incrusted bones which have been lately sent to M. Cuvier from the 

 Isle of France really belonged to the Dodo, aa M. Cuvier was led to 

 believe. It is a question which would be most easily solved by the 

 immediate comparison of theee bones with the pieces preserved in 

 England. If this was so, which the difference of height in the tarsal 

 bone does not permit us to believe, it would be at the same time 

 proved that the Dodo existed also at Rodriguez, for these bones have 

 been found in this isle in a cave (grotte), as M. Quoy, who saw them 

 on his passage to the Isle of France, has assured me ; and not at the 

 Isle of France under beds of lava, as M. Cuvier has stated from erro- 

 neous information in his note read lately to the academy. Then there 

 would be nearly a certainty that the Dodo was a Gallinaceous Bird ; 

 but in making the observation that these bones come from the Isle of 

 Fernandez, and that the description of the Solitaire of Leguat accords 

 sufficiently well with a bird of this order, or at lea.it with a Gallino- 

 Gralle, it might be that the bones actually in the hands of M. Cuvier 

 were no other than those of the Solitary Bird properly so called, and 

 not those of the true Dronte." 



The memoir is illustrated with four plates. The first is a coloured 

 copy of the head of the Dodo from the Museum portrait, of the size 

 of the original. In the painting, the author observes, the head is at 

 leant a foot long from the occiput to the extremity cf the bill ; but 

 the head at Oxford is only eight inches and a half, or about two- 

 thirds. The bill, he adds, makes out nearly three-fourths of the whole 

 length. The second plate gives a profile of the Oxford head from a 

 sketch taken from the original, and a view of the same seen from 

 above, and skulls of the Urubu, and Vultnr Papa. The third plate gives 

 two views of the foot preserved in the British Museum, and the 

 remains of the foot at Oxford ; a foot of the Heath-Cock (Coq de 

 Bruycre), a foot of a Penguin, and a foot of Vuliur Pajia. The fourth 

 plate gives a profile of the cast of the head at Oxford, and a view of 

 the same seen from below. 



In the Britwh Museum (1837), in cases 65-68 (Room xiii.), are the 

 Ostrich ; Bustards " which in many respects are allied to the Gallina- 

 ceous Birds ;" the foot and cast of the head of the Dodo above alluded 

 to ; the Courser and Pratincole ; and at page 99 of the ' Synopsis ' 

 (1832) we have the following observations : " Over the door adjoining 

 the twelfth room ia an original painting of the Dodo, presented to 

 the .Museum by George Edwards, Esq., the celebrated ornithological 

 artiat, and copied in his works, plate No. 294, who says it was 

 ' drawn in Holland from a living bird brought from St. Maurice's 

 Island in the East Indies.' The only remains of this bird at present 

 known are a foot (case 65) in this collection (presented by the Royal 

 y), and a head and foot said to have belonged to a specimen 

 which was formerly in Tradescant's Museum, but is now in the Ash- 

 raolean Museum at Oxford. The cast of the head above mentioned 

 (in the same case) wag presented by P. Duncan, Esq. The bird in 

 the shortness of the wings resembles the ostrich, but its foot in 

 general rather resembles that of the common fowl, and the beak from 

 the position of it* nostrils is most nearly allied to the vulturux ; HO 



that its true place in the series of birds, if indeed such a bird ever 

 really existed, is not as yet satisfactorily determined." 



Mr. Swaiuson (' Natural History and Classification of Birds," 1836), 

 speaking of the birds of prey, says (p. 285) : " The third and last 

 type of this family appears to us to be the Secretary Vulture of 

 Africa, forming the genus Gypogerarms. At least we cannot assign it 

 to any other known division of the Raptores without separating it 

 much more widely from its congeners than our present state of 

 knowledge will sanction. It has been thought indeed that this 

 remarkable bird represented one of the primary divisions of the 

 whole order, in which case it would stand between the owls nnd the 

 Dodo ; but its similarity to the vultures and the falcons in our opinion 

 is too great to favour this supposition ; while, on the other hand, it 

 will subsequently appear that the circle of the Falconidte is sufficiently 

 complete to show that it does not enter into that family." After some 

 other observations Mr. Swainson concludes his remarks on the Secre- 

 tary thus : " It must be remembered also that the very same objec- 

 tions occur against placing this bird (the Secretary) between the 

 fti'i'/iiln (Owls) and the Dididit (Dodos) as those we have intimated 

 against considering it as the grallatorial type of the Vulturidic." 



That a bird or birds called by the name of Dodo and the other 

 appellations which we need not here repeat once existed, we think 

 the evidence above given sufficiently proves. We have indeed heard 

 doubts expressed whether the Museum portrait was taken " from a 

 living bird," and have also heard it suggested that the picture may 

 represent a specimen made up of the body of an ostrich to which the 

 bill and legs of other birds have been attached ; and here it is that 

 the destruction of Tradescant's specimen becomes a source of the 

 greatest regret. Whatever was the condition of that specimen, as 

 long as the skin was preserved there existed the means of ascertain- 

 ing whether it was real or a made-up monster ; and when the vice- 

 chancellor and the other curators, in making their lustration, gave the 

 fatal nod of approbation they destroyed that evidence. With regard 

 to the picture, we have endeavoured to place it before the reader as 

 well as our limited means will permit, in order that he may have an 

 opportunity of judging from the internal evidence as to the proba- 

 bility of the portrait being taken from a living bird, and with this 

 view we have given the accessories as they appear in the painting as 

 well as the principal figure. 



Dr. 3. E. Gray, among others, still inclines, we believe, to the opinion 

 that the bird represented was made up by joining the head of a bird 

 of prey approaching the Vultures, if not belonging to that family, to 

 the legs of a Gallinaceous Bird ; and his opinion, from his attain- 

 ments and experience, is worthy of all respect. His reasons for con- 

 sidering the Dodo as belonging to the Raptores chiefly rest on the fol- 

 lowing facts, premising, as he does, that it is to be borne in mind that 

 in the Raptorial Birds the form of the bill is their chief ordinal 

 character, which is not the case with the Grattatores or the Natatores, 

 where the form of the feet and legs are the chief character of the 

 order : 



" 1. The base of the bill is enveloped in a cere, as may be seen in 

 the cast, where the folds of the cere are distinctly exhibited, especially 

 over the back of the nostrils. The cere is only found in the Raptorial 

 Birds. 



" 2. The nostrils are placed exactly in front of the cere, as they are 

 in the other Raptores ; they are oval, and nearly erect, as they are in 

 the True Vultures, and in that genus alone; and not longitudinal as 

 they are in the Cathartes, all the Gallinaceous Birds, GraUatorex, and 

 Natatvre* ; and they are naked, and covered with an arched scale, as 

 is the case in all the Qattinaceai. 



" 3. In Edwards's picture the bill is represented as much hooked 

 (like the Kaptoret) at the tip ; a character which unfortunately 

 cannot be verified on the Oxford head, as that specimen is destitute 

 of the horny sheath of the bill, and only shows the form of the 

 bony core. 



" With regard to the size of the bill, it is to be observed that this 

 part varies greatly in the different species of Vultures ; indeed so 

 much so, that there is no reason to believe that the bird of the 

 Oxford head was much larger than some of the known Vultures. 



'' With regard to the foot," adds Dr. Gray, '' it has all the charac- 

 ters of that of the Gallinaceous Birds, and differs from all the Vultures 

 in the shortness of the middle toe, the form of the scales 011 the leg, 

 and the bluntness of the claws." 



But if we grant Dr. Gray's position, see what we have to deal with. 

 We have then two species, which are either extinct or have escaped 

 the researches of all zoologists, to account for : one, a bird of prey, 

 to judge from its bill, larger than the condor ; the other a Gallinaceous 

 Bird, whose pillar-like legs must have supported an enormous body. 

 As to the stories of the disgusting quality of the flesh of the bird 

 found and eaten by the Dutch, that will weigh but little in the scale 

 when we take tlie expression to be, what it really was, indicative of 

 a comparative preference for the turtle-doves there found after feeding 

 on Dodos ' usque et nauseam.' " Always partridges " has become almost 

 proverbial, and we find from Lawaou how a repetition of the most 

 delicious food palls. " We cooked our supper," says that traveller, 

 " but having neither bread nor salt our fat turkeys began to be*loath- 

 some to us ; although we were never wanting of a good appetite, yet 

 a continuance of one diet made us weary ;" and again : " By the way 



