78 DIVISION I. VERTEBRAL ANIMALS.—CLASS II. AVES. 
ORDER PULLASTRA. 
Ty this order are included the Didunculide, or Dodos (birds now ex- 
tinct); the Columbide, or Pigeons; the Penelopida, or Cracide, Curas- 
sows, of Gray, and the Megapodide, the Megapodes, or Mound Birds. 
Our present limits will permit but a brief view of these families, and the 
others not yet treated of. 
Famity Dipuncutipm. Tne Dopos. 
Of the existence of the Dodo in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, 
there is abundant evidence. Its habitat was the Island of Mauritius: it is 
described as being as large as our swans, with a large head, and a kind of 
hood thereon; “no wings, but, in place of them, three or four black little 
pens, and the tail consisting of four or five plumelets of a grayish color.” 
In Willoughby’s translation of Clusius is the following : — 
“This exotic bird, found by the Hollanders on the Mauritius Island, did 
equal or exceed a swan in bigness, but was of a far different shape ; for its 
head was ereat, covered, as it were, with a certain membrane resembling a 
hood; besides, its bill was not flat and broad, but thick and Jong, of a yel- 
lowish color next the head, the point being black. The upper chap was 
hooked, in the nether was a bluish spot in the middle, between the yellow 
and black part. Its legs were thick, rather than long, whose upper part, as 
far as the knee, was covered with black feathers.” 
Bontius, edited by Piso (1658), says, — 
“Tt hath yellow legs, thick, but very short; four toes in each foot, solid, 
long, as it were, scaly, armed with strong, black claws. It is a slow-paced 
and stupid bird, and which easily becomes a prey to the fowlers. The flesh, 
especially of the breast, is fat, esculent, and so copious, that three or four 
Dodos will sometimes suffice to fill an hundred seamen’s bellies.” 
Of the information concerning these birds accessible, the above seems the 
most interesting. The species is now completely extirpated, and a skull and 
foot, with a few old paintings in the British Museum, are all there is left to 
show that it ever existed. 
Fammy Cotumpipz. Picrons and Doves. 
Vieillot conformed to the opinion of Linnzus in placing these birds among 
the Passeres, because of their natural great analogy to that group, like 
nearly the whole of which, the Pigeons pair in the season of love, the male 
and female working jointly at the nest, taking their turns during incubation, 
