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 
Canide. 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. 1V.— PART VI. 
