THE DODO 53 



article on the Dodo in the " Dictionary of Birds " may be 

 cited as an illustration of the learning and the exhaus- 

 tive criticism with which he could discuss a matter 

 that strongly appealed to him. 



During the next fifteen years Newton secured 

 specimens of the remains of most of the extinct birds of 

 the islands, including an almost complete skeleton of the 

 Dodo, which is one of the most valued possessions of the 

 Cambridge University Museum. 



Many years later, when his friend Mr. Meade- Waldo 

 was joining Lord Crawford on a cruise in the yacht 

 Valhalla, Newton urged him to remember the Dodo and 

 the other extinct birds of the Indian Ocean islands. 



. . . There is not a single Uving thing in any one of 

 the islands you are to visit that is "not of the highest 

 importance — of that you may be sure — ^and unfortunately 

 few if any of the people who have been there before have 

 understood what opportunities they had, and therefore 

 have failed to appreciate them. From what you write 

 I should think it very likely that on your way back you 

 will call at Mauritius. In that case you might be doing 

 a great service if you could prevail on the authorities of 

 the Museum there to entmst to you the collection of 

 Dodo's and other mostly extinct birds' bones which they 

 lately bought of a M. Thirion, an enthusiastic barber, 

 living in Port Louis, who has been for some years past 

 digging them up for his own satisfaction — ^he having had 

 the luck to find a place (I have never known clearly 

 whether a cave or not) which has been very prolific. He 

 made a great secret of the place and I don't blame him 

 for that, but he sold all his " find " to the Museum, and 

 there it is with no one, so far as I know, competent to 

 describe it. Among the specimens are portions of the 

 Dodo's skeleton, which were hitherto unknown, and it 

 is most desirable that they should be described and 

 figured properly — ^to say nothing of the remains of other 

 extinct species, Lophopsittacus, Afhanapteryx, etc., of 



