THE DIDUNCULUS. 
203 
the natives. This tree is most gigantic : the trunk of one 
measured by Mr. Peale was a hundred and two feet in cir- 
cumference^ and about the same height from the ground to 
the main branches. Three specimens only were procured^ 
by the Expedition^ of this bird^ so rare is it now; and of 
these, two were lost by the wreck of the ship^. 
Like the dodo and solitaire, great birds which the Didim- 
cuius somewhat resembled, this local species will soon pro- 
bably be extinct, and only known, like the former, by remains 
preserved in museums or by pictures. Those who are de- 
sirous of studying the history of the dodo, a bird shown 
by Dr. Melville and Mr. Strickland to have belonged to the 
order of Pigeons, should consult the finely -illustrated quarto 
volume, drawn up with so much learning by these two 
gentlemen. The history of its extinction, as the history of 
one of the species of animals which have been destroyed in 
comparatively recent times, is a most interesting one to the 
student of the Distribution of Animals. 
* United States Eiploring Expedition, 1838-1842, under the command 
of Charles Wilkes, U.S.N., vol. viii. p. 208, etc. Mammalia and Ornithologya 
by Titian R. Peale, Philadelphia, 1848, 
