4-G HISXORY Of 



upon the vegetable productions of the earth, and another part 

 upon the flesh of each otlier ; so among birds, some live upon 

 vegetable food, and others by rapine, destroying all such as want 

 force or swiftness to procure their safety. By thus peopling 



The figure of the dodo, found ia " Edwards's Gleanings," was copied from 

 a drawing made at the Mauritius from a living indi\idual. Tliis figure has 

 served as a model for all others, and particularly for those given by Dr La- 

 tham, by Blumenbach, and by Shaw. The last writer, having remarked 

 some relations between the bill of the dodo and that of the albatross, in- 

 quires, whether an inacciu'ate representation, done by a sailor, might not 

 have given rise to the supposition of a new genus ; but when he considers 

 what excessive negligence it would be in any painter to represent a web. 

 footed bird with cleft and separate toes, and to substitute simple winglets for 

 wings of considerable extent, he dismisses this conjecture as of little weight. 

 The same naturalist being deterniined to continue lijs researches, in conse- 

 quence of the assertions of Chai-leton, who, in his OiiomaHicon Zoicon, af- 

 firms that the bill and head of the dodo were then in the Museiun of the 

 Koyal Society, and of Grew who mentions the leg of one of these birds 

 among the curiosities of the British Museum, found the leg in question at 

 the Museum, and another log, with the bill and p.-ui; of the cranium, in the 

 Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, to wliich all the curious objects in that of 

 Tradescaut had been transferred. These two pieces came from the indivi. 

 dual examined by Willoughby and Ray ; and the foot, notwithstanding 

 some injuries of time, seemed to him exactly like the one he had seen in 

 London. Shaw gives the figures of them both, and declares that his doubts 

 concerning the existence of the dodo were completely dispelled. 



There are, unfortunately, no other facts than those we have stated which 

 are calculated to throw any light on the existence of the dodo, which has 

 never been seen in Europe since the era above mentioned, when it was s;ud 

 that these birds were found in great numbers in the Isles of France, Bour- 

 bon, Rodrigue, and Sechelles. From the notes furnished by M. Jlorell to 

 the Abbe Kozier, in 1'77S, and whicli were inserted in the " Journal de Fhy- 

 Bique," that all those monstrous birds called Dronte, or Dodo, SoUtan/ Dodo, 

 and Naxarene Dodo, were perfectly luiknown to the oldest inhabitants of 

 these islands, where they had not been seen for more than a century, it ii» 

 impossible to conceive how birds of such weight, without proper ^^'ings, 

 and not web-footed, consequently unable either to SAvim or fly, could cross the 

 space which separates the islands which they have assigned as their habita- 

 tion. This reflection, too, invalidates the conjecture of Grant, that the dodo 

 may yet be found on the coasts of some uninhabited islands. The only mode 

 remaining of enabling us to form any positive judgment on the bird ui ques- 

 tion, would be to examine and compare the earliest relations of the pen. 

 guins and manchots, and to see what analogies may exist between them and 

 the accounts of the dodo. 



Mr John V. Thompson, in a comnumicatiou to the Magazine of Natural 

 History, on the subject, says, " Having resided some years amongst tliose 

 islands, iudusive of Madagascar, .uid being curious to find whether any tes. 

 tiniony could bo obtained on the spot, as to the existence of the dodo in anj 

 of the islands of this or the neighbouring archipelagoes, I may venture to say. 



