THE DODO. 383 



review of his friend Mr Strickland's work on " The Dodo 

 and its Kindred." Amidst its pleasantry and waggish- 

 ness, it abounds in information.] 



What was the Dodo ? when was the Dodo ? where 

 is the Dodo ? are all questions, the first more especially, 

 which it is fully more easy to ask than answer. Whoever 

 has looked through books on natural history — for example, 

 that noted but now scarce instructor of our early youth, 

 the "Three Hundred Animals" — must have observed a 

 somewhat ungainly creatine, with a huge curved bill, a 

 shortish neck, scarcely any wiDgs, a plumy tuft upon the 

 back — considerably on the off-side, though pretending to 

 be a tail — and a very shapeless body, extraordinarily large 

 and round about the hinder end. This anomalous animal 

 being covered with feathers, and having, in addition to 

 the other attributes above referred to, only two legs, has 

 been, we think justly, regarded as a bird, and has accord- 

 ingly been named the Dodo. But why it should be so 

 named is another of the many mysterious questions which 

 require to be considered in the history of this unaccount- 

 able creature. No one alleges, nor can we conceive it 

 possible, that it claims kindred with either of the only 

 two human beings we ever heard , f who bore the name :— 

 " And after him (Adino the Eznite) was Eleazar the son 

 of Dodo, the Ahohite, one of the three mighty men with 



