SIR HANS SLOANE. 21 



the Duke of York, (afterwards James II.) with 

 his Duchess, and the Princess Anne, (afterwards 

 Queen of England.) It may be proper to mention, 

 that among the remnants of Tradescant's collec- 

 tion still preserved, there are the bill and foot 

 of the Dodo, (Didus ineptus, Lin.*) a bird no 

 longer in existence. " It was first seen by the 

 Dutch when they landed on the Isle of France, 

 at that time uninhabited, immediately after the 

 discovery of a passage to the East Indies by the 

 Cape of Good Hope. It was of a large size and 

 singular form ; its wings short, like those of an 

 Ostrich, and wholly incapable of sustaining its 

 heavy body even for a short flight. In its 

 general appearance it differed from the Ostrich, 

 Cassowary, or any known bird/'j" " The death 

 of a species," says Mr Lyell, " is so remarkable 

 an event in Natural History, that it deserves com- 

 memoration ; and it is with no small interest that 

 we learn from the archives of the University of 

 Oxford, the exact day and year when the remains 

 of the last specimen of the Dodo, which had been 

 permitted to rot in the Ashmolean Museum, were 

 cast away. The relics, we are told, were "a Museo 

 subducta, annuente Vice-cancellario aliisque cura- 



* The Dodo is now supposed to form the Rasorial type 

 among the Valiuida. See an excellent paper in tltf 

 Nouvelles Annales des Sciences Naturelles. 



t Lyell's Principles of Geology, vol. ii. p. 157, 8vo. 

 edit. 



