7 
Dodo is one of those which are here without the number.’ (Duncan, “ On the Dodo,” 
Zool. Journ. vol. iii. p. 659.) 
“We now come to the celebrated painting in the British Museum, a copy of which, 
by the kind assistance of the officers of the zoological department, who have given us 
every assistance in prosecuting this inquiry, and who had it taken down for the purpose, 
we present to our readers 
“ It has been stated that the painting came into the possession of Sir Hans Sloane, 
president of the Eoyal Society, and that it was bought at his sale by Edwards, who, after 
publishing a plate from it in his Gleanings, presented it to the Eoyal Society, whence it 
passed, as well as the foot, into the British Museum. But Mr. Gray informs us that the 
foot only came with the museum of the Eoyal Society described by Grew ; and that the 
picture was an especial gift from Edwards. Edwards’s copy seems to have been made in 
1760, and he himself says — ‘The original picture was drawn in Holland from the living 
bird brought from St. Maurice’s Island, in the East Indies, in the early times of the dis- 
covery of the Indies by the way of the Cape of Good Hope. It was the property of the 
late Sir Hans Sloane to the time of his death ; and afterwards becoming my property I de- 
posited it in the British Museum as a great curiosity. The above history of the picture 
I had from Sir Hans Sloane and the late Dr. Mortimer, secretary to the Eoyal Society.’ 
“ M. Morel (Ecrivain Principal des Hopitaux au Port-Louis de I’lsle de France) writes 
as follows in his paper ‘ Sur les oiseaux monstrueux nommes Dronte, Dodo, Cygne 
Capuchonne, Solitaire, et Oiseau de Nazare, et sur la petite Isle de Sable a 50 lieues 
environ de Madagascar.’ ‘ These birds, so well described in the second volume of the 
‘ History of Birds,’ by M. le Comte de Buffon, and of which M. de Borame has also 
spoken in his ‘ Dictionary of Natural History,’ under the names of Dronte, Dodo, 
Hooded Swan (Cygne Capuchonne), Solitary or Wild Turkey (Dinde sauvage) of Mada- 
gascar, have never been seen in the isles of France, Bourbon, Eodriguez, or even the 
Seychelles lately discovered, during more than sixty years since when these places have 
been inhabited and visited by French colonists. The oldest inhabitants assure every 
one that these monstrous birds have been always unknown to them.’ After some 
remarks that the Portuguese and Dutch who first overran these islands may have seen 
some very large birds, such as Emeus or Cassowaries, &c., and described them each after 
his own manner of observing, M. Morel thus proceeds : ‘ However this may be, it is 
certain that for nearly an age (depuis pres un siecle) no one has here seen an animal of 
this species. But it is very probable that before the islands were inhabited, people 
might have been able to find some species of very large birds, heavy and incapable of 
flight, and that the first mariners who sojourned there soon destroyed them from the 
facility with which they were caught. This was what made the Dutch sailors call the 
bird ‘Oiseau de degout’ (Walck-Voegel), because they were surfeited with the flesh of 
* The outline of the Dodo in this painting is given, of the natural size, in PI. III. of the present work ; the 
reduced woodcut (tom. cit. p. 51, copied by Strickland, op. eit. p. 28) is, therefore, not here reproduced. — E. 0. 
