ANCIENT BIRDS 



221 



giant storks. Leaving these, we now pass on to say a few 

 words about the Dodo, and some other birds that lived in historic 

 times. 



Every one has heard of that singular bird, now totally extinct, 

 the Didus ineptus (or Dodo), which formerly inhabited the islands 

 of Mauritius and Bourbon (see Plate XXXV.). The last record 

 of its appearance dates from the 

 year 1681. It was a large and 

 heavy bird, bigger than a swan, and 

 entirely unlike the pigeons, with 

 which, however, it seems clearly to 

 be allied. Its wings were so small 

 as to be quite useless for flight. The 

 legs were short and stout, with four 

 toes on each foot, and the tail was 

 extremely short, carrying a tuft of 

 soft plumes. The beak was decidedly 

 hooked, as in birds of prey. 



Visitors to the Natural History 

 Museum will see, in the same case 

 with the remains of the gigantic 

 ^pyornis from Madagascar, some of 



the bones of this remarkable bird, FIG. 83. Restored skeleton of 



,i , . i j a large bird. Gastornis Edwardsii, 



together With a portrait from an old from Eocene strata near Paris and 



painting. The Oxford Museum once R heims. (After M. le Docteur 



Lemoine.) Height over 7 feet. 



possessed a complete stuffed speci- 

 men, but now, alas ! only the head and one foot remain. 



In the reports of numerous voyagers who visited the islands of 

 Mauritius, Bourbon, and Eodriguez, from the end of the fifteenth 

 century to the middle of the seventeenth, we have many accounts 

 of the appearance and habits of this bird, evidently sketched from 



