MR. W. J. BRODERIP ON THE DODO. 185 



are instead four or five curling plumes of a greyish colour. They have a thick round 

 rump, and from this it appears they got the name of Dod-aerses. In their stomachs 

 they have commonly a stone as big as a fist ; this stone is of a brown-grey colour, and 

 full of little holes and hollows, bnt as hard as the grey Bentemer stone. The boat's- 

 crew of the Jacoh van Neck called them Walgh-vogels (surfeit birds), because they 

 could not cook them till they were done, or make them tender ; or because they were 

 able to get so many turtle-doves which had a much more pleasant flavour, so that they 

 took a disgust to these birds. Likewise it is said that three or four of these birds are 

 enough to afford a whole ship's company one full meal. Indeed they salted down some 

 of them, and carried them with them on the voyage." 



At the top of the page in which this passage commences is printed " Van de Dod- 

 aersen." And immediately below it and above the description is a copper-plate of the 

 bird, superscribed "Dod-aers," in engraved italics. 



The engraving of the bird is identical in position and accessories with the woodcut 

 given by Mr. Strickland ; but the sharpness of the work and the nature of the plate 

 make the whole much clearer. The object at which the Dodo is looking, as if about to 

 feed, is manifestly a testaceous moUusk with a turbinated shell, and between that and 

 the raised foot of the bird is a half-buried spiny Echinus. 



The locality on which the Dodo is walking has the appearance of a strand which the 

 tide has left dry. 



Wolfgangh's account confirms the opinion which I hazarded in the article " Dodo " 

 in the ' Penny CyclopEedia.' 



" As to the stories of the disgusting quality of the flesh of the bird found and eaten 

 by the Dutch, they will weigh but Uttle in the scale when we take the expression to be, 

 what it really was, indicative of a comparative preference for the turtle-doves there 

 found, after feeding on Dodos usque ad nauseam. ' Always partridges ' has become 

 proverbial, and we find from Lawson how a repetition of the most delicious food palls. 

 ' We cooked our supper,' says that traveller, ' but having neither bread nor salt, our 

 fat turkeys began to be loathsome to us ; although we were never wanting of a good 

 appetite, yet a continuance of one diet made us weary ; ' and again, ' By the way our 

 guide killed more turkeys, and two polecats, which he eat, esteeming them before fat 

 turkeys.' " 



It does not follow that because the Dodo is represented as looking at the frutti di 

 mari, he is about to devour them. But if it be granted he is, the admission would not 

 militate against the opinion of those who would place the Dodo between the Struthious 

 and GalUnaceous birds. It is well known that the turkeys in America come down to 

 the shore and feed upon the "fiddler" crabs; and there would be nothing extra- 

 ordinary in a quisquilious feeder, such as the Dodo probably was, varying its fruit and 

 vegetable diet occasionally by resorting to such animal substances as it might find on 

 the strand. Common poultry eagerly pick up insects and slugs in the fields, and, in 



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