XV. On the Dodo (Part Il.).—WNotes on the Articulated Skeleton of the Dodo (Didus 
ineptus, Linn.) in the British Museum. By Professor Owen, F.R.S., F.Z.S., Le. 
Read April 18th, 1871. 
[Puates LXIV. to LXVI.] 
SINCE the former communication, of January 9th, 1866, to the Society’, in which 
were figured the bones of the Dodo then at my command, and, in pl. 15. fig. 1, as laid 
down skeleton-wise within the outline of the British Museum oil-painting of the Dodo, 
natural size, I have been favoured with other specimens of the osteology of that extinct 
bird. These, chiefly due to further transmissions by Mr. George Clarke, C.M.Z.S., 
from the Mauritius, justified the undertaking an articulation of the skeleton, which has 
accordingly been carried out ably and artistically by Mr. E. Gerard, jun.; and the speci- 
men is now exhibited in the Ornithological Gallery of the British Museum (Pls. LXIV. 
and LXV.). It is not, indeed, entirely complete, there still being wanting the bones of 
the hand and of the tail. But one important character of the pelvis has been rectified 
by the acquisition of the os pubis*, which yields an additional mark of affinity of Didus 
to Pezophaps® and the existing pigeons. 
Pezophaps and Didus (the Solitaire and the Dodo) agree in the extent and kind of 
anchylosis in the dorsal region of the spine. It affects, in both, the three vertebre 
preceding the last free, rib-bearing dorsal. In both species the neural spines have run 
together into a bony ridge, with a straight, thickened upper free border. In both 
the confluence of the neural arches is only interrupted by the conjugational foramina 
(pl. 17. figs. 1 & 5, ff,O.; pl. 15. fig. 51, N.), which are similar in size and shape. 
My series of these coalesced vertebre included two varieties:—one showing a feeble 
beginning of the hypapophysis at the fore part of the last vertebra (pl. 17. fig. 5, O.); 
the other a better-developed, though small, hypapophysis, but so extended as to reach, 
and coalesce at its extremity with, that of the antecedent vertebra, leaving a vacuity 
corresponding with the wider one between the first and second of the coalesced hyp- 
apophyses. In Pezophaps the specimen (pl. 15. fig. 51, N.) resembles the variety (pl. 17. 
fig. 5, O.) of Didus, save in the absence of any indication of hypapophysis on the third 
‘ Trans. Zool. Soc. vol. vi. p. 49. 
> T mistook that rib-like bone for one of the dorsal ribs in my former Memoir; the body of the restored rib 
(pl. 16. fig. 2) and the detached portion of the rib (figs. 9, 9a) are portions of the “ pubic bones.” 
3 Professor A.and Mr. E. Newton, “On the Osteology of the Solitaire, &c.,” Phil. Trans. 1869, pls. 17 & 18, 
figs. 66, 68-70. Future references to this interesting and instructive Memoir will be made under the 
letter N.; those to my own Memoir, of 1866, on Didus by the letter O. 
VOL. VII.—PART vil. November, 1871. 4D 
