304 . THE DODO. 



they would never have ventured to attempt, so peculiarly are 

 they in body and limb unfitted for swimming, without some 

 internal capacity similar to the above.* 



Of the last bird in this list, the Dodo, no particulars are 

 known. The following account of one exhibited in London 

 is the only instance, we believe, on record of its appearance 

 as a living species in modern times; we give it on the 

 authority of Sir Hamon L'Estrange, quoted in Sir Thomas 

 Browne's Works, vol. ii. p. 174. " About 1638, as I walked 

 London streets, I sawe the picture of a strange fowle hang 

 out, and myselfe, with one or two more then in company, 

 went in to see it. It was kept in a chamber, and was a 

 great fowle, somewhat bigger than the largest Turkey-cock, 

 and so legged and footed, but shorter and thicker, and of a 

 more erect shape, coloured before like the breast of a young 

 cock Fesan, and on the back of durm or deare coulour. The 

 keeper called it a Dodo, and in the ende of a chimney in the 

 chamber there lay an heap of large pebble stones, whereof he 

 gave it many in our sight, some as bigge as nutmegs, and 

 the keeper told us shee eate them, conducing unto digestion ; 

 and though I remember not how far the keeper was questioned 

 herein, yet I am confident that afterwards shee cast them all 

 agayne." 



Whether this bird was, however, after all, a real Dodo is 

 very questionable; for although there is no doubt of its 

 having been in former times abundant in some of the islands 

 of the Indian Ocean, it is supposed to have long ago ceased 

 to exist, and is therefore generally considered by naturalists 

 as extinct a species as those animals whose bones are occa- 

 sionally found in a fossil state, in rocks and caves. 



* See note on the pouch of the Hurgila, p. 325. 



