Mr. H. E. Strickland on the Dodo and its Kindred. 337 



The length of this bone being so nearly that of the Dodo's 

 metatarsus, we are enabled to see at a glance those great dif- 

 ferences in its shape and proportions, which seem to justify us 

 in asserting the Solitaire to have been generically, as well as 

 specifically, distinct from the Dodo. The shaft of the bone is 

 longer, both absolutely and proportionally, more slender, and 

 less expanded at both extremities ; all which characters are in- 

 dicative of greater speed and activity. There are also several 

 minor distinctions which Dr. Melville has pointed out (Dodo 

 and its Kindred, p. 117), and which are beautifully exhibited in 

 the specimen before us. Yet notwithstanding these distinctions, 

 there is no disputing the very close affinity between the two 

 birds to which these osseous fragments belong. The metatarsi 

 of the Dodo and of the Solitaire are both distinguished by the 

 expansion of the trochlear extremity, the elongation of the inter- 

 nal trochlea, the form and development of the calcaneal processes 

 and of the buttress or ridge connected with them, with other 

 characters indicative of near affinity. 



The characters alluded to moreover confirm in the strongest 

 manner the affinity of both these birds to the Columbidce or 

 Pigeons. If the bone before us were now discovered for the first 

 time, no comparative anatomist could hesitate in pronouncing it 

 to belong to a gigantic species of Pigeon. I need not repeat the 

 arguments which we have already adduced on this head, but will 

 merely point out the single character, peculiar to the Pigeons and 

 to the allied group of Pterocles, that the calcaneal canal which 

 transmits the tendons of the flexor perforans digitorum, passes on 

 the outside of the posterior ridge or buttress, whereas in Galli- 

 naceous and other birds it passes on the inside of that ridge. 



7. Dr. Cabofs views of Dodo-affinity identical with our own. — 

 I gladly take this opportunity of doing justice to a short but able 

 article by Dr. Cabot, published at the commencement of 1848 

 in the * Boston Journal of Natural History/ vol. v. p. 490. This 

 paper has only lately come into my hands, and it is hardly 

 necessary to add, that Dr. Cabot's conclusions as to the affinities 

 of the Dodo were arrived at quite independently of those simul- 

 taneously deduced by Dr. Melville and myself in this country. 

 Under these circumstances it is gratifying to find that Dr. Cabot, 

 although the data on which he reasoned were far less complete 

 than our own, having only seen casts of the external parts of the 

 Dodo's head and foot, has arrived at precisely the same conclu- 

 sion as ourselves, viz. that " The Dodo was a gigantic Pigeon," 

 and that it most nearly approached the genus Treron ( Vinago) . 

 If the coherence of independent witnesses be any test of truth, 

 we could hardly have had a stronger confirmation of the sound- 



Ann. %Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 2. Vol iv. 23 



