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Ch. XLII.] 



EXTINCTION OF THE DODO. 



4 5 7 



4 



is a leg, in a fine state of preservation, wliicli ornitliolo gists 

 are agreed cannot belong to any other known bird. In the 



at Oxford, also, there is a foot and a head in an 



mnsenm 



imperfect state. 



In spite of the most active search, during the last century, 

 no information respecting the dodo was obtained, and some 

 authors went so far as to pretend that it had never existed ; 



of satisfactory evidence in favour of its 



but 



mass 



Mr 



■X- 



and by Mr. Strickland and Dr. Melville. Mr. Strickland, 

 agreeing with Professor Eeinhardt, of Copenhagen, in re- 

 ferring the dodo to the Columbidce, calls it a ' vulture-like 

 frugiverous pigeon.' . It appears, also, that another short- 

 winged bird of the same order, called ' The Solitaire,' 

 inhabited the island of Eodrigues, 300 miles east of the 

 Mauritius, and has been exterminated by man, as have one 

 or two different but allied birds of the Isle of Bourbon. f In 

 the year 1865 parts of the skeleton of the dodo were dug up 

 in a bog near the sea in the island of Mauritius. They were 

 sent to Professor Owen, and were described by him in the 

 Transactions of the Zoological Society for 1867. Speaking of 

 the extinct bird as the great ' gTonnd-dove ' of the Mauritius^ 

 he speculates on this peculiar species having originated in 

 that uninhabited and thickly wooded island^ where there was 

 no animal powerful enough to contend with it and from wdiich 

 it would be required to escape by flight. He therefore con- 

 ceives that ' finding food enough scattered over the ground^ it 

 ceased to exert its wings in raising the heavy trunk^ and so 

 gradually gained bulk in the course of many generations. 

 Hence the organs of flight would^ according to Lamarckian 

 principles^ be atrophied by disease and diminished in size and 

 strength, while the hind limbs, having an increasing weight 

 to support and being exercised by habitual motion on the 

 land, would acquire larger dimensions. ':j 



T 



Rapid propagation of domestic quadrupeds over the American 

 continent. — Next to the direct agency of man, his indirect 

 influence in multiplying the numbers of large herbivorous 



* Penny Cyclopaedia, 'Dodo/ 1837. * the Dodo and its Kindred/ London, 



t Messrs. >Striekland and Melville on 1818. 



I Zool. Soe, Trans. 1867. 



. h 



