36 AFFINITIES [Parr I. 
course, have its feathers so modified as to serve only as a clothing to the skin, and they 
would no longer exhibit that peculiar compactness, and those beautiful mechanical arrange- 
ments which are seen in the feathers of volatile birds. 
If the Dodo, then, be neither a Penguin, an Auk, nor an Ostrich, it must evidently be 
either an entirely unique and independent organization, representing in its own person a 
whole order of birds, or (which is far more probable) it must be an exceptional form of some 
other group, to which it stands in the same relation as the Ostriches to the Bustards, the 
Penguins to the Divers, or the Alca impennis to the other genera of Aleide. 
We have seen that the Dodo can be referred neither to the Grallatorial nor Natatorial 
orders. Its great bulk, and the vast strength and curvature of the beak, seem equally to 
remove it from the Insessores, properly so called. There apparently remain, therefore, only 
the Gallinaceous and Raptorial orders with which we can compare it. 
Before stating my own views of this question, I will give a brief notice of the opinions 
of some recent naturalists, whose criticisms are philosophical in spirit, if not correct in result. 
The arrangements of earlier systematists may be omitted, as being too crude and vague to be 
worth recording. 
Mr. Vigors, in his elaborate paper on the “ Affinities of Birds,” m the Linnzean 'Transac- 
tions,! vol. xiv. p. 484, referred the Dodo to the Gallinaceous order, and considered it to be 
intermediate between the Struthionide and the genus Crav. His words are as follows :— 
“The bird in question, from every account which we have of its economy, and from the appear- 
ance of its head and foot, is decidedly gallinaceous; and from the insufficiency of its wings for the 
purposes of flight, it may with equal certamty be pronounced to be of the Struthious structure, and 
referable to the present family (Strwthionide). But the foot has a strong hind toe, and, with the 
exception of its being more robust,—in which character it still adheres to the Struthionid@,—it cor- 
responds exactly with the foot of the Linnean genus Craa, that commences the succeeding family. 
The bird thus becomes osculant, and forms a strong point of junction between these two conterminous 
groups, which though evidently approaching each other in general points of similitude, would not 
exhibit that intimate bond of connection which we have seen to prevail almost uniformly throughout 
the neighbouring subdivisions of nature, were it not for the intervention of this important genus.” 
M. De Blainville, im the Nouvelles Annales du Muséum d’ Histoire Naturelle, vol. iv. 
p. 24, objects to this arrangement on the following grounds : Ist, the form of the beak, in which 
the strength, the terminal hook, the nudity of the base, the width of the gape, remind us (as he 
says) of a rapacious rather than of a granivorous bird ; 2ndly, the position of the nostrils, which 
are not provided with an incumbent scale; 3rdly, the strength and curvature of the claws ; 
Athly, the strength and shortness of the legs ; 5thly, the squamous covering of the tarsi; 6thly, 
the short and woolly plumage of the head and neck; 7thly, the alleged toughness and bad 
taste of the flesh; and 8thly, the absence of metatarsal spines. He consequently concludes 
''M. De Blainville, who seems to be acquainted with this valuable paper by Mr. Vigors, only from a brief 
notice of it in Mr. Duncan’s “ Memoir on the Dodo,” in the Zoological Journal, vol. iii. p. 558, tells us that it is 
written by “un auteur anonyme, mais que je crois étre M. Macleay.” 
