MR. W. J. BRODERIP ON THE DODO. 199 



are the seas of the Antilles, are at present very common ; but at the date of the picture — 

 the second year of the reign of our first Charles— the natural productions of the West 

 Indies were not well known, and were, comparatively, very scarce. With the shells 

 on the shore is the cranium of a carnivorous quadruped, apparently of the family 

 Canida. The monster-cetacean in the distance has evidently no chance with the 

 avenger who is coming down upon him mounted on a winged steed. But Pegasus, 

 who, with other prodigies, sprang from the blood that dropped from Medusa's head, as 

 the conqueror who had cut it off with his harpe traversed the air with his gory trophy, 

 immediately winged its flight to Helicon, there to become the pet of the Muses. The 

 best version of this mythological story relates, that when Perseus afterwards killed the 

 sea-monster and delivered Andromeda on the coast of Ethiopia, he effected his pur- 

 pose by raising himself in the air through the aid of the wings and talaria given to him 

 by Mercury, and not with the help of the winged horse on which most of the painters 

 mount him. 



Professor Owen informs me that Roland Savery's picture containing the Dodo, in the 

 Berlin collection, bears the date of 1626 ; and that the colour of the Dodo in the Duke of 

 Northumberland's picture resembles that of the portrait of the bird, of life size, by the 

 same painter, now at Oxford. L'Estrange describes the hue of the back of the living 

 Dodo which he saw exhibited in London " about 1638," as of " dunn or deare colour." 



VOL. IV. PA.RT VI. 



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