422 
ORDER STRUTHIONES. 
These birds are all extremely voracious, swal- 
lowing without discrimination almost any substance 
not too large to pass down the oesophagus, that is 
presented to them : they feed on vegetables of 
various kinds : they are polygamous, each male 
associating with three or four females, who deposit 
their eggs in a general nest ; and from ignorance 
of that circumstance, Linne has asserted that the 
female Ostrich lays near fifty eggs, whereas she 
does not produce more than twelve or fourteen at 
one time. 
The Dodo of Edwards appears to have existed 
only in the imagination of that artist, or the species 
has been utterly extirpated since his time, which 
is scarcely probable. Its beak is said to be de- 
posited in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and 
a foot in the collection in the British Museum. 
The former appears rather to belong to some 
unknown species of Albatross than to a bird of 
this order, and the latter to another unknown bird; 
but upon what authority it has been stated ta 
belong to the Dodo, I am at a loss to determine. 
A painting by Edwards still exists in the British 
Museum. 
Two other species of Didus are described by 
Latham and others, but the same doubt attaches 
to both of them as to the last mentioned. 
