THE MASCAEENE ISLANDS. 125 



Knt., cleared up my doubts. These letters have been well worked out by 

 Professor Newton (P. Z. S. part hi. May & June 1874, pp. 307 & 447). 



In that charming book ' The Dodo and its Kindred/ Strickland says 

 (p. 15) : — " It is not easy to determine the date when the synonymous words 

 Dodars (from w^hich our name Dodo is derived) and Dronte were first intro- 

 duced." He gives Willem van West-Zanen as the " earliest apparent 

 authority " for their use ; and proceeds very learnedly to contradict Sir 

 Thomas Herbert, who ^Hells us that it" (Dodo) "is a Portuguese word/' 

 and to prove its Dutch origin. 



In the two letters above mentioned, the name Do Do, thus written, and 

 corresponding with the orthography of Edwards's painting twice given, is 

 found three times, making five distinct cases from two sources. 



Emanuell Altham states as follows : — "This Hand hauing many goates, 

 hogs, and cowes upon it, and very strange fowles called by ye portingals Do 

 Do," &c. 



The capital D in these letters is quite distinct from the small d. 



Thus much for the orthography. But the ordinary pronunciation has 

 long struck me as probably wrong. What does Do spell } — the verb " to 

 do /' and it is pronounced doo. We say to a friend, " How do you do } " 

 Now, if we pronounce the name, as I contend, properly, we have Doo Doo — 

 a bisyllabic cry which might well be the repeated sound of a Pigeon. The 

 instances where sailors and unlearned persons, usually the first discoverers 

 of an animal, call it after its cry are numberless ; and this onomatopoeia is 

 the most natural and convenient thing in the world, as is proved by the 

 practice of nurses and mothers when teaching infants. Sometimes a colour 

 is used to give a name, as "the BlachhivdiJ' &c. 



In 'Notes and Queries' (October 16th, 1875, 5th ser. vol. iv. p. 316), 

 a writer (Stephen Jackson), on the calls of animals, says : — " In Switzerland 

 ahorse is called 'co-co,' a cat is 'minni' or 'minno.'" He might add, a 

 dog is a " bow-wow." 



