422 Scientific Intelligence. 



* 



The crowns of the teeth, with which Owen was not acquainted, have a 

 great resemblance to those of the seal ; in the maxillary teeth they are 

 cutting and many pointed; most of the maxillary teeth have double 

 roots, but the anterior has, as in the seals, only a single root. In the 

 anterior part of the jaw are found conical curved teeth, viz. an inci- 

 sive and a canine, at least this is the case with the under jaw. 



"As such teeth as those which are found in the Hydrarchus, occur 

 in the tertiary formation in Malta, we may conclude that this animal be- 

 longs likewise to the tertiary formation of that island. 



" I think I can positively show that the Hydrarchus is not a reptile, 

 but a mammal belonging to a peculiar extinct family. It has the ear 

 formed as in the mammals, viz. a helix, and a tympanic bone as in the 

 whales. It has moreover two occipital condyles, and in the whole for- 

 mation of the cranium no trace of reptile structure occurs, but on the 

 contrary every thing is as in mammals. 



" The vertebral column is very peculiar in its structure. The cervi- 

 cal vertebrae, probably more numerous than in any other mammal, are 

 without perforations in their transverse processes ; the ribs are only at- 

 tached to the transverse processes of the vertebrse; at the central and 

 f>osterior part of the column, the bodies of the vertebrae are unusually 

 ong, and must both at the anterior and posterior part of the extremities 

 have been cartilaginous, inasmuch as we find here beneath the bony 

 shell a mass of pure stone, while the central part of these vertebras 

 consists wholly of bone. 1 ' 



3. On the History of the Dodo and other allied species of Birds; 

 by H. E. Strickland, (Athen., No. 1029.)— He showed from histori- 

 cal data that each of the three islands of the Indo-African Ocean 

 Mauritius, Rodriguez and Bourbon— was originally inhabited by pecu- 

 liar species of brevipennate birds, all of which were speedily destroyed 

 by the early colonists. Mauritius was the birthplace of the Dodo :— 

 the first notice of which was not, as erroneously stated, by Vasco de 

 Garna, (who never visited Mauritius,) but by Van Neck, a Dutchman, 

 in 1598. Several successive voyagers mention the bird, down to 

 Cauche in 1638; and in the latter year a live specimen was brought to 

 London, and was described J>y Sir Hamon Lestrange. The pictorial 

 evidence respecting the dodo consists of four oil paintings : — one in tne 

 British Museum, without the artist's name ; one at the Hague, and an- 

 other at Berlin, by Roland Savery ; and one at Oxford, by John! Save- 

 ry, his nephew. All these are evidently from one design,— and may 

 have been drawn from a specimen which Van Neck brought to no - 

 land. The osleological evidences of the Dodo consist of the foot in tn 

 British Museum, the head and foot at Oxford, and a head lately d ' sc0 " 

 ered at Copenhagen. The three former specimens were ex ^ ,b,l ^j 

 and a cast of the latter had also been sent for the meeting; but w 

 detained by the vexatious formalities of the London Custom HoU ' 

 The Oxford head and foot have been recently dissected ; and from 

 characters thus exposed it is certain that the Dodo was not related ei 

 to the gallinaceous birds, the ostriches, or the vultures, as others 

 conjectured— but is closely allied to the pigeons. With the e * c *P fls; 

 of its short wings, it approaches greatly to the Trerons, or ^ ru ^'^ e ^ 

 and still more to the Didunculus, a kind of pigeon from the fcam 



