The Vodo. 329 



It is just barely supported upon two short thick legs, 

 like pillars ; while its head and neck rise from it in a 

 manner truly grotesque. The neck, thick and pursy, is 

 joined to the head, which consists of two immense jaws, 

 opening far beyond the eye. The Dodo formerly inha- 

 bited the Isle of France ; but it has been long extinct 

 so long, indeed, that the very fact of its ever having 

 existed at all has been a subject of dispute amongst 

 naturalists and scientific men. A great deal of evidence, 

 in the form of old pictures as well as in writings, has 

 been brought forward to prove that the Dodo is not a 

 fabulous bird, and its reality is now generally admitted. 

 Tn fact, we have very reliable testimony that a single 

 specimen was actually exhibited publicly in London in 

 the year 1638. 



The Dodo was supposed by the earliest naturalists 

 who described it, to be a kind of turkey, as in the fla- 

 vour of its flesh it resembled that bird. Later natural- 

 ists supposed it to be a kind of swan, and this opinion 

 was followed by the celebrated Buffon. Others thought 

 it was a kind of vulture ; and others, judging from the 

 shortness of its wings, placed it in the ostrich tribe. 

 Modern naturalists, however, having carefully examined 

 the bones of the bird, which have been preserved, are of 

 opinion that it was a gigantic pigeon. An entire speci- 

 men existed about a hundred years ago in the Ashmolean 

 Museum at Oxford, but only part of the bird and one of 

 the feet remain; there is also a foot preserved in the 

 British Museum. There is a reference to this extinct 

 species in Humboldt's Cosmos. (See Bonn's edition, vol. i. 

 page 29, and a note on the Dodo, by Dr. Mantell, at the 

 end of the volume.) 



The Solitaire is another remarkable bird which was 

 formerly found in the Mauritius and the adjoining 

 islands, but which has now become extinct. 



