The Dodo and its Kindred. 59 



After the French took possession of the country, in 1712, 

 under the name of the Isle of France, we hear no more of the 

 Dodo among living beings. 



Specimens and remains of the Dodo. — In Tradescant's cata- 

 logue of his museum, in South Lambeth, near London, there is 

 this entry: 



" Dodar from the island of .Mauritius; it is not able to flie, be- 

 ing so big." 



This was an entire bird ; it was probably the same that was 

 seen alive by Lestrange, in 1638 ; it was seen entire by Wil- 

 lughby, whose Ornithologia was published in 16T6, and the 

 specimen is alluded to by others. It passed with the rest of Tra- 

 descant's collections into the Ashmolean Museum, at Oxford, 

 where the head and foot are still remaining. These belonged to a 



spec 



Bl 



the Ashmolean Museum, at Oxford. There it remained entire 

 for a century, until 1755, when the vice-chancellor and the 

 other trustees, came in an unlucky hour to make their an- 

 nual visit to the museum. Zoology had then no legal exist- 

 ence as a science taught in the University; the specimen of 

 the Dodo had become decayed by time and neglect, and was 

 ordered by the visitors to be removed. On this fatal decree 

 Mr. Lyell remarks: " Some have complained that inscriptions on 

 tomb-stones convey no general information, except that indi- 

 viduals were born and died — accidents which happen alike to all 

 m en. But the death of a species is so remarkable an event in 

 natural history, that it deserves commemoration ; and it is with 

 no small interest that we learn from the archives of the Univer- 



tast specimen of the Dodo, which had been permitted to rot in 

 the Ashmolean Museum, were cast away. The relics, we are 

 told, were " a Museo subducta, annuentibus Vice-cancellario 

 aliisque Curatoribus, ad ea lustranda convocatis — die Januarii 

 8 ^o, A. D. 1755." 



By a lucky accident, the head and one of the feet of the last 

 descendant of an ancient race escaped destruction from the flames, 

 0, id are still in the Ashinoleari Museum. The head is in tolera- 

 e preservation, with the peculiar beak and nostrils, the bare 

 skin of the face, and the partially feathered occiput, formerly 

 compared to a hood. The eyes still remain dried within the 

 sockets, but the corneous extremity of the beak has perished ; 

 the specimen was probably a female. This head has been of 

 tate carefully dissected down on one side so as to expose its oste- 



°togical structure. 



. A leg, or rather foot, of the Dodo, belonging to a larger indi- 

 vidual than that mentioned above, is still preserved in good cou- 



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