44 Wonders of the Bird World 



must have hastened the process of extermination. The 

 Dodo was a gigantic, flightless, antique Pigeon, and appears 

 to have been confined to the island of Mauritius, where a 

 considerable number of its osteological remains have been 

 unearthed during the past forty years, so that more than 

 one nearly complete skeleton is to be found in Museums in 

 this country. Several drawings and paintings of the bird 

 are also preserved in various Institutions in Europe, but 

 the actual remains of the bird itself are very few, and no 

 perfect specimen of a stuffed Dodo is in any collection 

 to-day, though in the Oxford Museum is a head and right 

 foot, and the British Museum possesses a left foot. 

 Another head of the Dodo is in the Copenhagen Museum. 

 Many of the pictures representing the bird must have been 

 drawn from life, for it is certain that more than one speci- 

 men reached Europe alive. The sketch of the bird in the 

 present volume is drawn from the oil-painting in the British 

 Museum, which is believed to have been the work of Roe- 

 landt Savery, who died in 1639, and who painted several 

 pictures of the Dodo, apparently from living birds. 



In the neighbouring islands of Reunion and Rodriguez 

 also lived two Didine birds. Of that which inhabited the 

 former island nothing remains but tradition, and no speci- 

 mens of any kind are known. Of the " Solitaire " {Pezophaps 

 solitarius) of Rodriguez, many osteological remains have 

 been discovered in the caves of that island, and we also 

 know something of its habits from the writings of the old 

 Huguenot, Leguat, who landed on Rodriguez with other 

 refugees in 1 691, and lived there for two years. Although 

 discredited and considered fabulous by many recent writers, 

 the description by Leguat of the Solitaire has been strongly 

 confirmed by the bones discovered by Sir Edward Newton 

 and other naturalists who have made explorations in the 

 island. The males are said to have fought for the females 

 with great pugnacity, and they possessed a weapon of 



