17 
portrait of this individual, and that the design thus made may have been copied hy 
himself and hy his nephew John in their later pictures. Or if we feel disposed to 
douht the correctness of De Bry’s statement, we may yet suppose, with Professor Owen, 
that the menagerie of Prince Maurice supplied the living prototype for Savory’s pencil. 
This opinion is corroborated by the tradition recorded by Edwards, that the picture in 
the British Museum was drawn in Holland from the living bird. It is far more pro- 
bable than the conjecture of Dr. Hamel (Bull. Ac. Petersb. vol. v. p. 317), that Savory’s 
pictures were copied from the Dodo exhibited in London, as this individual must in 
that case have lived in captivity at least twelve years, from 1626 to 1638h” 
With the view to test the tradition recorded by Edwards as to the date and origin of 
the painting of the Dodo in the British Museum, I took a copy of the outline of the 
bird and laid upon it outlines of the bones of the Dodo subsequently to be described, as 
shown in Plate HI., and thus obtained proof that the painting truly represented the 
natural size and shape of the Bidus ineptus, and had no doubt been “ drawn in Ho llan d 
from the living bird^.” From the date of the first landing of the Dutch on the Island 
of Mauritius, in 1598, to their colonization of it in 1644, their ships frequently, perhaps 
annually, visited that island, and, as recorded by most of the writers quoted by Broderip, 
and testified by Van der Hagen, in 1607^ their crews feasted on Tortoises, Dodos, 
Doves, and other game, and also salted the Tortoises and Dodos for consumption during 
the voyage to the spice-islands of the Indian Archipelago. It is highly probable that 
more than one of the strange birds of Prince Maurice’s Island would he brought alive to 
Holland, and we know that a specimen was brought from that country for exhibition in 
London in the year 1638. It is certain that through the attacks of man, and those of 
the dogs, cats, and swine introduced by the Dutch into the Mauritius, the slow and 
heavy flightless Dodos were extirpated, probably before Leguat’s visit to the island in 
1693. The French colonists, who succeeded the Dutch in 1712, seem not to have found 
any Dodos remaining in the island ; their descendants and successors have preserved no 
traditions of the living bird ; and Baron Grant, who resided in the Mauritius from 1740 
to 1760, expressly states that no such bird was to he found there at that time^ 
Mr. Broderip refers, in his History of the Dodo, to the notice by Adam Olearius, in 
1666, of the head of that bird in the museum of the Duke of Gottorp. 
This specimen was most unexpectedly discovered by Professor Eeinhardt in the 
Museum of Natural History at Copenhagen under the following circumstances: — “In 
' Op. eit. p. 30. 
2 Edwards’s ‘Katural History of Birds and other Bare and undescribed Animals,’ &c., 4to, vol. vi. pi. 294, 1760. 
Pendant tont le temps qu on fut 1^, on vecnt de tortues, de dodarses, de pigeons, de perroquets gris, et 
d antre cbasse, qn on allait prendre avec les mains dans les hois. .... Ea chair des tortnes terrestres etoit 
d’lin fort bon gout. On en sala, et I’on fit fumer, dont on se trouva fort Men, de meme que des dodarses qu’on 
sala.” (Eecueil des Voiages de la Compagnie des Indes Or., vol. iii. pp. 195, 199, quoted hy Strickland, 
op. cit. p. 17.) 
“ ‘ History of the Mauritius,’ p. 145*, compiled from the Baron’s papers by his son. 
D 
