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 Edw^ards 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 j 

 but upon what authority it has been stated to 

 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. 



