214 LECTURE VI. 



Tradescant, at Lambeth, and was seen by our 

 famous Ray, who mentions it in his Synopsis of 

 Birds; but this skin appears to have been after- 

 wards suffered to decay; the beak alone, with 

 one of the legs, and that in a state of consi- 

 derable decay, being now preserved in the Ash- 

 molean Museum at Oxford, which is well known 

 to contain the old collection of Tradescant. The 

 Leg of a Dodo was also preserved in the Mu- 

 seum of the Royal Society, and is well described 

 by Grew in his description of that collection : 

 it is at present in the British Museum, and, 

 (fortunately for ascertaining the real existence of 

 so extraordinary a bird,) is in a good state of 

 preservation; amply confirming the description 

 given by Dr. Grew, and at once demonstrating 

 to the eye of every ornithologist that it cannot 

 belong to any other known bird. This leg, 

 from the British Museum, with the beak from 

 the Oxford Museum may be found amply de- 

 scribed and figured in the Naturalists' Miscellany, 

 where I have taken some pains to evince the 

 existence of the animal, which has been some- 

 times considered as doubtful. The bird itself 

 however is either grown so rare as to be no 



