

The Dodo and its Kindred. 61 



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would conclude ? Our author, however, considers the eel as intro- 

 duced for pictorial effect, believing and showing the Dodo to have 

 been a frugivorous bird. In the British Museum, is still another 

 picture of the Dodo, painted by John, nephew of Roland Savery, 

 in 1051. It is a fac-simile of the pictures already mentioned ; 

 but it is exaggerated to nearly double of the size allotted to the 

 Dodo ; it stands 3 feet 6 inches high. 



Conclusions respecting the Dodo. — " We must figure to 

 ourselves," — remarks our author, — " a massive, clumsy bird, 

 ungraceful in form, and with a slow waddling motion/' as 

 a duck or gosling would appear if magnified to the size of a 

 swan. Examples are not wanting in zoology, in which certain 

 species or certain organs remain permanently imperfect, or only 

 partially developed. The Greenland whale has only incipient 

 teeth, that never penetrate the gums — as the mode of life of this 

 animal and the nature of his food do not require mastication ; 

 the Proteus, living in subterranean caverns, retains the gills and 

 the tail, which are dropped in the case of other Batrachians, and 

 the eyes remain mere subcutaneous specks, without vision. So 

 the Dodo remains a permanent nestling, as the Proteus is a per- 

 manent tadpole ; it (the Dodo) is clothed with down instead of 

 feathers, and the wings and tail are too short to admit of flight. 

 The fishes and Crustacea of the Mammoth cave of Kentucky, 

 are eyeless, because in the dark cavern which they inhabit they 

 have no occasion for eyes. Similar reasons might doubtless be 

 suggested in other cases — but aside from such reasons, our author 

 remarks, that the Creator appears to have assigned to each class 

 of animals a definite type or structure, from which he has never 

 departed ; thus, if teeth are appropriate to a mammal, eyes to a 

 vertebrate, and wings to a bird, we may understand why in a 

 whale, the Proteus and the Dodo ; these organs are only rudi- 

 mentary — only suppressed, not annihilated. 



VVe should be slow to impute imperfection to any of the works 

 °t the Creator; a definite structure is given to every animal, 

 adapted to the conditions of its existence; "in this view every 

 department of the creation is equally perfect — the humblest ani- 

 malcule or the simplest Conferva being as completely organized 

 ^ r ith reference to its appropriate habitat, and its destined func- 

 tions, as man himself. Such a view of creation is surely more 

 Philosophical than the crude and profane ideas entertained by 

 Buffon and his disciples, one of whom calls the Dodo — k un oiseau 

 bizarre dont toutes les parties portaient le caractere d'nne con- 

 option manquee.' He fancies that this imperfection was the 

 result of the youthful impatience of the newly formed volcanic 

 elands which gave birth to the Dodo, and implies that a steady 

 °ld continent would have produced a much better article." 



