e 



THE DODO. 45.°, 



consists largely of the soft bulbous roots of several plants. The whole contour of the Tooth- 

 bill is remarkable, and decidedly quaint ; its rounded body seeming hardly in accordance with 

 the large beak, which is nearly as long as the head, and is greatly arched on the upper man- 

 dible. The lower mandible is deeply cleft into three distinct teeth near its tip. 



In color it is rather a brilliant bird. The head, neck, breast, and abdomen are glossy 

 greenish-black, and upon the shoulders and the upper part of the back the feathers are 

 velvety-black, each having a crescent-shaped mark of shining green near its extremity. The 

 rest of the back, the wings, tail, and under tail-coverts are deep chestnut. The primary and 

 secondary quill-feathers of the Aving are grayish-black, and the large arched bill is orange. 

 The total length of this bird is about fourteen inches. 



THE DODO. 



The position held by the celebrated Dodo among birds was long doubtful, and was only 

 settled in comparatively late years by careful examination of the few relics which are our sole 

 and scanty records of this very remarkable bird. 



For many years the accounts given by the early voyagers of the Dodar, or Walgh Vogel, 

 found in the Mauritius and other islands, were thought to be merely fabulous narratives, a 

 mental reaction having set in from the too comprehensive credulity of the previous times ; and 

 the various portraits of the Dodo to be found in the books of travel were set down as 

 examples, not of the Dodo, but of the inventive faculties possessed by the authors. Truth, 

 however, stood its own ground, as it always will do, and steadily withstood the batteries of 

 negative reasonings that were brought to bear on the subject. An entire bird was quietly 

 lodged in a museum at Oxford ; portions of other specimens made their way to Europe among 

 the curiosities which sailors are so fond of bringing home, and there is every reason to believe' 

 that a living example of this bird was exhibited in Holland. 



It is curious that, but for a code of far-seeing regulations, providing that when the stuffed 

 skin of a bird was so far decayed as to be useless as a specimen, the head and feet should be 

 preserved, our best and most perfect relics of the Dodo would have been burned as useless 

 rubbish. The specimen at Oxford was suffered to fall into decay, no one seeming to be aware 

 of its priceless value, and when the skin was destroyed, the head and feet were laid aside and 

 put away with other objects, among which they were afterwards discovered to the great joy of 

 the finder. These were sufficiently perfect to prove the real existence of the bird, and the 

 correctness with which it had been depicted by many draughtsmen ; some portraits being of 

 the rudest description, while others were the work of eminent artists, and most valuable for 

 their high finish and accuracy of detail. The position of the bird among the feathered tribes 

 was long doubtful, and it was jjrovisionally placed between the ostriches and bustards, 

 until, after a careful examination of the relics, it was found to belong to the pigeon tribe. 

 This decision received a valuable confirmation in the discovery of the tooth-billed pigeon, just 

 described. 



For further information respecting the anatomical and scientific details of this bird, 

 the reader is referred to Strickland and Melville's instructive and interesting work on the 

 subject. 



Many of the earlier travellers have spoken of the Dodo — a name, by the way, corrupted 

 from the Dutch term Dod-aers — and their accounts are as quaint as the bird winch they 

 'describe. For example, Bontius writes as follows : " The Dronte, or Dod-aers, is for bigness 

 of mean size between an ostrich and a turkey, from which it partly differs in shape and partly 

 agrees with them, especially with the African ostriches, if you consider the rump, quills, and 

 feathers ; so that it was like a pigmy among them if you regard the shortness of its legs. 



' L It has a great ill-favored head, covered with a kind of membrane, resembling a hood; 

 great black eyes; a bending, prominent, fat neck: an extraordinary long, strong, bluish- 

 white bill, only the ends of each mandible are a different color, that of the upper black, that 



