Postscript to Part IT. 
Wuen this work was on the eve of publication, we received the Bulletin de la Classe phys. math. de 
? Académie Imp. de St. Pétersbourg, vol. vii. No. 3, containing an abstract of a paper by Professor J. F. 
Brandt, entitled “ Untersuchungen iiber die Verwandtschaften, die systematische Stellung, die geographische 
Verbreitung und die Vertilgung des Dodo, nebst Bemerkungen iiber die cim Vaterlande des Dodo, oder auf 
den Nachbarinseln desselben friither vorhandenen grossen Wadvogel.” This memoir, which was read 
Dec.«l7, 1847, contains the author’s views of the affinities of the Dodo, which, it will be seen, differ con- 
siderably from our own. He states that after a diligent comparison of a cast of the Copenhagen Dodo-head 
with the osteological series in the Petersburg Museum, he had arrived at the following conclusions :— 
“1. The Dodo, taken strictly, in regard either to the anatomy, or to the outer form of the head and foot, 
was not a Raptorial Bird, not even an anomalous one, although the last opinion has been adopted by several 
modern English and French naturalists of high reputation. 
«2. The great difference in the form of its skull and beak from those of the Ostrich, equally forbids us 
to include it, as was formerly done, in that family of birds, although it approached them in its short wings, 
the texture of its plumage, its strong and (in general form) not very dissimilar feet, and the mode of scutu- 
lation of the tarsi. 
«3. Neither can the Dodo be included among the Gallinaceous birds, on account of the very important 
differences of its cranial structure, and other discrepancies of outward form; although the form of its tarsus 
and the organization of its toes come very near to those of many Gallinz. 
“4. The Dodo agrees in the form of the majority of its cramial bones, and even in the shape of the 
beak, with the prevailing type of the Pigeons, as I had perceived, in common with my colleague v. Hamel, 
in the summer of 1846. Yet, considering the different form of the frontal, vertical, and occipital facets of 
its cranium, and the different shape and size of the lachrymal bone,! the palate bone, upper mandible, and 
maxillary continuation of the nasal, as well as the diversity of the wings, toes, and plumage, I am unable to 
refer it to the Pigeons, either immediately, or even as an aberrant form. 
“5. The Dodo, a bird provided with divided toes and cursorial feet, is best classed in the order of 
Waders, among which it appears, from its many peculiarities (most of which, however, are quite referable 
to forms in this order), to be an anomalous link connecting several groups,'a link which, for the reasons 
above given, inclines towards the Ostriches, and especially also towards the Pigeons. 
“a. Inregard to the cramial structure it approaches, among the Waders, most nearly to the Plovers, a 
group which also points, the most clearly of all Waders, to the type of the Pigeon’s skull.? It inclines, it is true, 
1 Prefrontal of this Treatise. 
? “The typical and great similarity of the skull in the Pigeons and Plovers is placed in juxtaposition in my 
treatise on the Dodo. One may accordingly regard the Plovers as Pigeon-forms, developed among the Waders, and 
