246 



AVES SUB-ORDER DIDI. 



on their thighs are round like shells at the end, and being there very thick, 

 have an agreeable effect They have two risings on their craws, and the 

 feathers are whiter than the rest, which lively represents the fine neck of a 

 beautiful woman. They walk with so much stateliness and good grace, that 

 one eannot help admiring and loving them ; by which means their fine mien 

 often saves their lives. We find in the gizzards of both male and female a 

 brown stone, of the bigness of a hen's egg ; 'tis somewhat rough, flat on one 

 side, and round on the other, heavy and hard. We believe that this stone 

 was there when they were hatched, for let them never be so young, you 

 meet with it always. They have never but one of 'em, and besides, the 

 passage from the craw to the gizzard is so narrow, that a like mass of half 

 the bigness could not pass. It served to whet our knives better than any 

 other stone, whatsoever." 



The dodo lived in Mauritius, and more is known of its appearance than of 

 the solitaire, as several drawings of it were made from life, and now exist in 



various libraries. A foot 

 of the bird is in the British 

 Museum, and another is in 

 the Ashmolean Museum at 

 Oxford, along with a head, 

 these being the last relics 

 of an embalmed specimen 

 which was destroyed by 

 the authorities at Oxford 

 in 1855. Another head of 

 the dodo is in the Museum 

 at Copenhagen, but the 

 actual remains of the body 

 of this wonderful bird are 

 very few, and the species 

 is principally known from 

 the skeletons which have 

 been unearthed during the 

 last few years. The heavy 

 body of the dodo, with its 

 feathery tail, and wings 

 represented by a few 

 plumes only, have led some authorities to consider it as a kind of struthious 

 bird, from the similarity of its wings to those of an ostrich, but recent re- 

 searches have shown that the dodo was a gigantic pigeon. 



We have now followed the Class Aves from the Ratitse, through the 

 Tinamous to the Game-Birds, and thence through the Sand- Grouse to the 

 Pigeons. We now come to a sudden stop in the continuity of the series of 

 orders of birds, and take up the thread of connection a little further back, 

 it being absolutely impossible to follow a direct linear arrangement in 

 a scheme of classification. 



The hoatzin has the appearance of a Game-Bird, and especially of a guan. 

 Like the latter birds, it is an inhabitant of South America, where it is found 

 on the Amazon and the rivers of Guiana, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, 

 Peru, and Bolivia. For all its guan-like appearance, the bird is more of a 

 rail than a Game-Bird, and its curious nest, suspended in the branches over- 

 hanging the water, is like that of a rail, while its eggs greatly resemble those 



s - * 



Fig. 14. THE DODO (Didus ineptus). 



