Dodo and Solitaire 409 



entirely naked. The bill is swollen at the tip, which is hard and convex, and has 

 the basal portion covered by a soft skin in which the slit-like (schizorhinal) nos- 

 trils open. The palate is of the slit-form (schizognathous), and the breast-bone 

 is generally provided with four deep notches on its posterior portion, although 

 sometimes it is very narrow and has but two notches. The oil-gland is naked or 

 even wholly absent, and the caeca is generally rudimentary or in any event not 

 functional, while the feathers are without an aftershaft or at most with a rudi- 

 mentary one. The wings are usually long and strong with eleven quills, and the 

 tail consists of from twelve to twenty feathers. "The Pigeons build a nest of 

 very simple structure, composed of twigs and generally placed in a tree. The eggs 

 are generally two, and constantly white, though some species lay only one egg. 

 The newly hatched young are naked and altogether helpless, and for a time 

 they are nourished with a secretion from the well-developed crop." 



The Pigeons are divided into two families, in the first of which (Didida] the 

 wing is rudimentary and wholly useless for flight, while in the second (Colum- 

 bida) the wing is functional. The latter, in which is included all of the groups 

 except the Dodo and Solitaire, is further divisible into some five subfamilies, as 

 follows: The Tree Pigeons (Trer (mince and Columbina), the Ground Pigeons 

 (Peristerincc), the Crowned Pigeons (Gourince), and the Tooth-billed Pigeon 

 (Didunculince). The characters on which each of these subfamilies is based 

 will be set forth under the treatment of the several groups. 



THE DODO AND SOLITAIRE 



(Family Dididce) 



As already pointed out, the members of this family are distinguished at once 

 from the typical or normal Pigeons by the almost complete abortion of the wing 

 and the consequent loss of the power of flight. There are naturally also a num- 

 ber of important structural characters, but of these we may only mention the 

 absence of basipterygoid processes and much-reduced furcula. The following 

 entertaining account is quoted almost entire from Mr. F. A. Lucas : What the 

 Brahma is among domestic fowls the Dodo (Didus ineptus) was to a far greater 

 extent among the order of Pigeons, a grotesque, aberrant, and gigantic member 

 of the group. The first mention of the Dodo was in an account of the voy- 

 age of the Dutch Admiral Jacob Cornelius Van Neck to Mauritius in 1598. 

 The Dodo is there called Walchvogel, or disgusting fowl, partly on account of 

 the toughness of its flesh and partly because even the best portions of the Dodo 

 were poor in comparison with the tender meat of the abundant Doves. This 

 curious bird was found only in Mauritius. Another closely related species, 

 the Solitaire (Pezophaps solitarius), was found in Rodriguez, and probably a 

 third member of the family at Bourbon, this last species being known only 

 from the description of travelers, for not even a bone of it has ever come under 

 the ken of naturalists. De Bry, the chronicler of Van Neck's voyage, says the 



