AFFINITIES [Parr I. 
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1s 8) 
“3. In Edwards’s picture the bill is represented as much hooked (hke the Raptores) at the tip ; 
a character which unfortunately cannot be verified on the Oxford head, as that specimen is destitute of 
the horny sheath of the bill, and only shows the form of the bony core. 
«With regard to the size of the bill, it is to be observed that this part varies greatly in the diffe- 
rent species of Vultures, indeed so much so that there is no reason to believe that the bird of the 
Oxford head was much larger than some of the known Vultures. 
“With regard to the foot, it has all the character of that of the Galdinaceous birds, and differs 
from all the Vultures in the shortness of the middle toe, the form of the leg, and the bluntness of the 
claws.” (Penny Cyclopedia, vol. ix. p. 55.) 
Mr. Broderip, on the other hand, after a full discussion of the question, sums it up as 
follows :— 
“Tf the picture in the British Museum and the cut in Bontius be faithful representations of a 
creature then living, to make such a bird a bird of prey—a Vulture, in the ordinary acceptation of the 
term—would be to set all the usual laws of adaptation at defiance. A Vulture without wings! How 
was it to be fed? And not only without wings, but necessarily slow and heavy jn progression on its 
clumsy feet. The Vu/turid@ are, as we know, among the most active agents for removing the decom- 
posing animal remains in tropical and intertropical climates, and they are provided with a prodigal 
development of wing to waft them speedily to the spot tainted by the corrupt incumbrance. But no 
such powers of wing would be required by a bird appomted to clear away the decaying and decomposing 
masses of a luxuriant tropical vegetation—a kind of Vulture for vegetable impurities, so to speak,—and 
such an office would not be by any means inconsistent with comparative slowness of pedestrian motion.” 
Professor Owen has lately made a more minute examination of the remains preserved 
at Oxford than was in the power of M. de Blainville, who was only acquainted with these 
relics through the medium of drawings and casts. The former was further aided by 
the recent dissection of the foot, made by Dr. Kidd, and has given us the result of his 
observations ina memoir published in 1845, in the Transactions of the Zoological Society, 
vol. iii. p. 331. Mr. Owen remarks, that the Dodo differs from all Raptorial birds “in the 
greater elevation of the frontal bones above the cerebral hemispheres, in the sudden sinking 
of the interorbital and nasal region of the forehead, in the rapid compression of the beak 
anterior to the orbits, in the elongation of the compressed mandibles, and in the depth and 
direction of the sloping symphysis of the lower jaw.” He further adds that the eyes are 
smaller in proportion, and the nostrils more in advance and lower down than in the Vu/turide. 
The arguments adduced by Professor Owen in favour of its affinity to the Vultures, 
from a comparison of the bones of the foot with those of the common Cock, Crax, and 
other Galling, on the one hand, and of the Vulture and Eagle on the other, will be stated at 
length in Part I. of this work. He concludes as follows :— 
“Upon the whole, then, the Raptorial character prevails most in the structure of the foot, as in 
the general form of the beak of the Dodo, and the present limited amount of our anatomical knowledge 
of the extinct terrestial bird of the Mauritius supports the conclusion that it is an extremely modified 
form of the Raptorial order. Devoid of the power of flight, it could have had small chance of obtaining 
