

The Dodo and its Kindred. 57 



. In 1607, the crews of Van der Hagen's two ships "feasted on 

 abundance of tortoises, dodars, pigeons, turtles, grey parroquets 



and other game," which they caught by hand in the woods, and 



they salted quantities of dodars and tortoises for their voyage. 



In 1611, P. W. Verhuffen touched at Mauritius, and mentions 

 Dodos under the name of Totersten. He describes them as Van 

 Neck had done ; — says that his sailors killed numbers of them 

 daily for food, and that the Dodos sometimes inflicted severe 

 wounds upon their aggressors with their powerful beaks. 



In 1617, Picter Van den Broecke visited Mauritius, and in the 

 account of his voyages there is a rude figure of the Dodo and 

 also of a short winged bird resembling the Apteryx, but neither 

 of the figures is -alluded to in the book. 



Sir Thomas Herbert was at Mauritius in 1627, and has given a 

 figure of the Dodo and a description, of which the language was 

 varied in other successive editions. All these descriptions are 

 amusing on account of their quaintness ; the following is the most 

 recent ; « The Dodo : a bird the Dutch call Walghvogel or Dod 



n"'~& 



Eersen j her body is round and flat, which occasions the slow 

 pace, or that her corpulencie ; and so great that few of them 

 weigh less than fifty pounds ; meat it is with some, but better to 

 the eye than stomach ; such as only a strong appetite can van- 

 quish ; but otherwise, through its oyliness it cannot chuse but 

 quickly cloy and nauseate the stomach, being indeed more pleas- 

 urable to look than feed upon. It is of a melancholy visage as sen- 

 sible of natures injury in framing so massie a body, to be directed 

 by complementary wings, such indeed as are unable to hoise her 

 from the ground, serving only to rank her amongst birds ; her 

 head is variously drest, for one half is hooded with down of a dark 

 color; the other half naked and of a white hue. as if lawn were 

 drawn over it ; her bill hooks and bends downwards ; the thrill 

 °r breathing place is in the midst ; from which part to the end, 



le c °l° r is of a light green mixt with a pale yellow ; her eyes are 

 round and bright (her eyes are small, and like to diamonds round 

 and fowling) ;* and instead of feathers has a most fine down; 

 her train (like to a Chyna beard) is no more than three or four 

 short feathers ; her legs are thick and black; her tallons great; 



er st °rnach fiery, so as she can easily digest stones (stones and 

 ,ro £); in that and shape not a little resembling the Ostrich." 

 ^ tran^ois Cauche says, that in 1638, he saw in Mauritius birds 



larger than a swan, covered with a black down, with curled 

 feathers on the rump, and similar ones in place of wings; that 

 Jhe beak was large and curved, the legs scaly, the nest made oi 

 he rbs heaped together, that they lay but one egg of the size of 



The clauses here in parentheses are from one of the other descriptions of the 

 me author. 



Second Serim, Vol. VII, No. 19.- Jan., 1849. 8 



