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“ This description may be thus rendered : — 
“ ‘ In the Island of Mauritius in the East Indies, as also in sundry other places, like- 
wise in the West Indies, men find birds as big as swans, which they call Dod-aerses or 
Drontes. They have large heads, upon the top of which is a skin (a little skin- 
membrane) in the shape of a cap (little cap). They have no wings, hut in the place of 
them there are three or four black feathers ; and there where the tail should be, there 
are instead four or five curling plumes of a greyish colour. They have a thick round 
rump, and from this it appears they got the name of Dod-aerses. In their stomachs 
they have commonly a stone as big as a fist ; this stone is of a brown- grey colour, and 
full of little holes and hollows, but as hard as the grey Bentemer stone. The boat’s 
crew of Jacob van Neck called them Walgh-vogels (surfeit birds), because they could 
not cook them till they were done, or make them tender ; or because they were able 
to get so many turtle-doves which had a much more pleasant flavour, so that they 
took a disgust to these birds. Likewise it is said that three or four of these birds are 
enough to atford a whole ship’s company one full meal. Indeed they salted down some 
of them, and carried them with them on the voyage.’ 
“ At the top of the page in which this passage commences is printed ‘ Van de Bod- 
aersen! And immediately below it and above the description is a copper-plate of the 
bird, superscribed ‘ Dod-aers," in engraved italics. 
“ The engraving of the bird is identical in position and accessories with the woodcut 
given by Mr. Strickland ; but the sharpness of the work and the nature of the plate 
make the whole much clearer. The object at which the Dodo is looking, as if about to 
feed, is manifestly a testaceous mollusk with a turbinated shell, and between that and 
the raised foot of the bird is a half-buried spiny Echinus. 
“ The locality on which the Dodo is walking has the appearance of a strand which 
the tide has left dry. 
“ Wolfgangh’s account confirms the opinion which I hazarded in the article ‘Dodo’ 
in the ‘ Penny Cyclopaedia.’ 
“ ‘ As to the stories of the disgusting quality of the flesh of the bird found and eaten 
by the Dutch, they will weigh but little in the scale when we take the expression to be, 
what it really was, indicative of a comparative preference for the turtle-doves there 
found, after feeding on Dodos usque ad nauseam. “Always partridges” has become 
proverbial, and we find from Lawson how a repetition of the most delicious food palls. 
“We cooked our supper,” says that traveller, “ but having neither bread nor salt, our fat 
turkeys began to be loathsome to us ; although we were never wanting of a good appe- 
tite, yet a continuance of one diet made us weary;” and again, “By the way our guide 
killed more turkeys, and two polecats, which he eat, esteeming them before fat turkeys.” ’ 
“ It does not follow that because the Dodo is represented as looking at the frutti di 
mari, he is about to devour them. But if it be granted he is, the admission would not 
militate against the opinion of those who would place the Dodo between the Struthious 
