52 The Dodo and its Kindred 



Art. V. — The Dodo and its Kindred, or the History, Affinities 

 and Osteology of the Dodo, Solitaire and other extinct Birds 

 of the Islands Mauritius, Rodriguez, and Bourbon; by 

 H. E. Strickland, and A. G. Melville.* 



This beautiful volume is illustrated by fifteen quarto and fold- 

 ed plates, containing one hundred and 'fifty figures chiefly litho- 

 graphs ; some are executed by the anastatic process — and three 

 by a new process called Papyrography. 



Part I. of this work, containing seventy pages, was written by 

 Mr. Strickland, and comprises the historical and descriptive por- 

 tions; Part II. (pp. 56) is by Dr. Melville, and includes the 

 Osteology. 



This is a very remarkable Book. The historical facts have 

 been gathered with great industry from nearly one hundred and 

 fifty works cited, and most of them consulted by the author, and 

 they have been combined with signal skill and acuteness. 



The singular birds of which the volume treats, peopled in great 

 numbers the Islands Mauritius, Bourbon and Rodriguez, until 

 nearly two centuries since, when they were exterminated by the 

 hand of man. Their extinction is therefore not to be ascribed, 

 like that of many races, to the agency of geological causes. Man, 

 especially in the earlier colonial and savage state, indulges in the 

 slaughter of the inferior animals — too often from the mere pleas- 

 ure of destroying them even when their bodies are not subservi- 

 ent to his wants. 



Mr. Strickland remarks, however, in the introduction — that 



" it appears highly probable that death is a law of nature in the 



* The Dodo and its kindred, or the history, affinities and Osteology of the Dodo, 

 Solitaire and other extinct birds of the Islands Mauritius, Rodriguez, and Bourbon. 

 By H. E. Strickland, M.A., F.G.S., P.E.OJB.. President of the Ashmolean Soci- 

 ety, Jfec., and A. G. Melville, M.D., Edrn., M.RX.S., " Pes et Caput urn red- 

 dentur formae." London: Reeve, Benham and Reeve, 8 King William street, 

 Strand. 1848. Quarto, pp. 141. Dedicated to P. B. Duncan, Esq., M.A., Keeper 

 of the Ashmolean Museum. 





species as well as in the individual ; but this internal tendency 

 to extinction is in both cases liable to be anticipated by violent 

 or accidental causes. The object of the treatise is to exhibit 

 some remarkable examples of the extinction, through human 

 agency, and under circumstances of peculiar interest, of several 

 ornithic species, constituting an entire sub-family-" Mr. Strick- 

 land observes that the geographical distribution of organic groups 

 is equally remarkable with their geological succession in time ; 

 certain groups of both animals and plants, often containing nu- 

 merous genera and species, being found to be confined to certain i 

 continents and their circumjacent islands. 



