60 The Dodo and its Kindred. 



dition in the British Museum ; it exhibits the external characters 

 of the tarsus and the toes in a very interesting manner. 



A cranium, mentioned by Olearius as being in 1666 in the 

 Gottorf Museum, at Copenhagen, after being neglected for almost 

 two centuries, was lately " recovered by Prof. C. Reinhardtfrom a 

 heap of venerable rubbish/' It corresponds very nearly with the 

 Oxford specimen, but all the soft parts are removed. 



These are all the known genuine fragments of the Dodo, but 

 it is hoped that others may be yet discovered in the island of 

 Mauritius, by researches about to be undertaken there. 



Pictures of the Dodo. — In addition to the rude drawings of 

 the early voyagers, all of which, with a single exception, are 

 marked by strong verisimilitude, there are five oil paintings by 

 eminent artists, which leave no reasonable doubt of their being 

 faithful copies of the originals. One of the paintings is anony- 

 mous — three are by Roland Savery, an eminent Dutch painter 

 of animals, early in the 17th century, and one is by his nephew, 

 John Savery. The first of these paintings is that copied in all 

 books of natural history. It was painted in Holland, from the 

 living bird brought from Mauritius. This picture, once the prop- 

 erty of Sir H. Sloane, and afterwards of the artist Edwards, was 

 by him deposited in the British Museum, where it is now in the 

 bird gallery, along with the Dodo's foot. It is believed to have 

 been painted by one of the Saverys, and to have represented a 

 larger bird than that to which the foot belonged. At the Hague 

 there is a painting by Roland Savery ; the subject is Orpheus 

 charming the animals by his music : innumerable beasts and 

 birds are depicted with perfect accuracy, and amon^ them, in one 

 corner, the clumsy Dodo spell-bound, and although on a small 

 scale, perfectly exact, even in the minutest particulars. The 

 Dodo and all the other animals were evidently copied from living 

 specimens. 



At Berlin, Mr. Strickland found, in 1845, among several highly 

 finished pictures by Roland Savery, one dated 1626, represent- 

 ing numerous animals in Paradise, one of which is a Dodo, which 

 may have been painted from the living bird, brought home by 

 the Dutch navigator, Van Neck. 



There is also a picture of the Dodo, by Roland Savery, form- 

 ing part of a larger picture, at Vienna ; it is dated 1628. " There 

 are two circumstances which give an especial interest to this 

 painting, {see plate, p. 53] First, the novelty of attitude in the 

 Dodo, exhibiting an activity of character which corroborates the 

 supposition that the artist had a livii o 

 contrasting strongly with the aspect of passive stolidity in the 

 other pictures ; and secondly, the Dodo is represented as watch- 

 eel in the water. n Are we henee to infer that the Dodo 

















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