Cu. I.] OF THE DODO. Al 
voyage round the world, but I was orally informed that he considered the Dodo to be inter- 
mediate between the Pigeons and the Gallinaceous birds. On subsequently examining the 
remains which we possess in Britain, I soon saw reasons for classing this bird even nearer 
to the Pigeons than I then understood it to be placed by Professor Remhardt. This gentle- 
man, however, has lately visited London on his return from his distant voyage, and has 
informed me that, before he left Denmark in 1845, he had pointed out, in his letters to 
several Swedish and Danish zoologists, “the striking affinity which exists between this 
extinct bird and the Pigeons, especially the Trerons.” 
I will now briefly notice the points of agreement in the structure of the Dodo, and in 
that of the Pigeons, which serve to substantiate the above hypothesis. 
A. Eeternal characters—1. The whole group of Pigeons are remarkable for having the corneous 
portion of the beak very short, the basal portion long, slender, and covered with a soft naked skin, all 
which characters exist in the Dodo, but not in the Gallinaceous birds, nor, with the exception of the 
Cathartine, in the Raptores. In all birds the basal portion of the mandibles, whether feathered or 
bare, is divided from the corneous termination by a separating line; but in the Raptores this basal 
portion, instead of being depressed, soft, and vascular, as in the Dodo and the Pigeons, is prominent 
and somewhat hard and horny, resembling wax m appearance, whence it has received the name of cere. 
The Catharting are the only Raptores which have a soft cere, and in this very superficial character 
they may certainly be said to resemble the Dodo. 
2. In some species of Zreron, in Geophaps, Macropygia, and other Columbine genera, the eyes are 
surrounded by a naked skin, which, if extended over the face, so as to join the bare basal portion of 
the beak, would produce the appearance which we see in the Didus. In those rare genera, Verrulia 
and Didunculus (see plate VI1.), this junction of the ocular and rostral are actually takes place, 
and a little more expansion of this naked surface over the forehead would transform those birds into 
miniature Dodos. 
3. In the two strongest beaked genera of Pigeons, Zreron and Didunculus, the corneous portion 
of the beak is strongly uncinate and compressed, while the tip of the lower mandible curves upwards, 
and is overhung by the upper one. A comparison of plates V. and VII. will show how precisely this 
conformation is repeated in Didus. 
4. In Treron and in Didus the nostril is placed about the middle of the beak, close to the base 
of the corneous portion, and near the lower margin. This forward and /ow position of the nostril 
occurs more or less in other genera of Pigeons, but in no other family of birds, that I know of. Some 
of the Vultures have this orifice equally forward, but none so low down as Zero or Didus. (See 
plate VII. fig. 3). Nor can any stress be laid on the supposed absence of an incumbent scale in the 
Dodo (“sans écaille supérieure”), referred to by M. De Blainville as a Vulturine character. The only 
meaning which we can attach to the phrase, “nostrils furnished with an incumbent scale,” often met 
with in Bird-books, is that the nostrils enter the beak oddiquely, so that their upper margin overhangs 
the lower. Now this is, in fact, the case in the Dodo, whose nostrils are remarkably oblique, and are 
overhung above by a soft, tumid skin, agreeing herein with the Pigeons, and differing from the 
Raptores. 
5. We find in the Pigeons, even to a greater degree than in Didus, that sudden sinking from the 
forehead to the beak, and the rapid narrowing of the beak in front of the orbits, which Professor 
