446 



CLASS AVES. 



two pieces came from the individual examined by Wil- 

 loughby and Ray ; and the foot, notwithstanding some in- 

 juries of time, seemed to him exactly like the one he had seen 

 in London. Shaw gives the figures of them both, and de- 

 clares that his doubts concerning the existence of the dodo 

 were completely dispelled. But our author, as we have seen, 

 by no means shares in this conviction, and thinks that the 

 bill is not unlike that of the penguin, and that the foot, if 

 palmatedj would bear a sufficient resemblance to that of the 

 aptenodytes. 



It is certain, indeed, that the stripes and inflexions ob- 

 servable on the upper mandible of the penguins present a 

 great analogy with those on the bill of the dodo, which is 

 very different from that of the ostrich, the emu, and the 

 other granivorous birds with which it was at first compared. 

 Neither would it be at all surprising if the membranes which 

 perhaps existed between the toes of the only individual 

 brought into Europe in 1598, might have become the prey 

 of insects, as is very frequently the case with specimens not 

 taken proper care of in old collections. 



There are, unfortunately, no other facts than those we 

 have stated which are calculated to throw any light on the 

 existence of the dodo, which has never been seen in Europe 

 since the era above mentioned, when it was said that these 

 birds were found in great numbers in the Isles of France, 

 Bourbon, Rodrigue, and Sechelles. From the notes fur- 

 nished by M. Morell to the Abbe Rozier, in 177^, and which 

 were inserted in the " Journal de Physique," that all those 

 monstrous birds called Dronte, or Dodo, Solitary Dodo, and 

 Nazarene Dodo, were perfectly unknown to the oldest inha- 

 bitants of these islands, where they had not been seen for 

 more than a century, it is impossible to conceive how birds 

 of such weight, without proper Avings, and not web-footed, 

 consequently unable either to swim or fly, could cross the 



