6 
scaly, armed with strong, black claws. It is a slow-paced and stupid bird, and which 
easily becomes a prey to the fowlers. The flesh, especially of the breast, is fat, esculent, 
and so copious, that three or four Dodos will sometimes suffice to fill an hundred sea- 
mens’ bellies. If they be old, or not well boiled, they are of difficult concoction, and 
are salted and stored up for provision of victual. There are found in their stomachs 
stones of an ash colour, of divers figures and magnitudes ; yet not bred there, as the 
common people and seamen fancy, but swallowed by the bird ; as though by this mark 
also nature would manifest that these fowl are of the ostrich kind, in that they swallow 
any hard things, though they do not digest them.’ 
“ It appears from Adam Olearius (Die Gottorfische Kunst Kammer, 1666), that there 
was a head to be seen in the Gottorf Museum; but the figure (tab. 13. f. 6) is very like 
that of Clusius. It is mentioned as the head of the Watch- Vogel, and Clusius is referred 
to. In the plate the head is shaded, and has a more finished appearance : the rest of 
the bird is in outline*. 
“ Grew (‘ Musseum Eegalis Societatis ; or a catalogue and description of the natural 
and artificial rarities belonging to the Eoyal Society,’ London, folio, 1681), at p. 68, thus 
describes the bird which is the subject of our inquiry. ‘The leg of a Dodo; called 
Cygnus cucullatus by Nierembergius ; by Clusius, Gallus gallinaceus peregrinus •, by 
Bontius called Dronte, who saith that by some it is called (in Dutch) Bod-aers, largely 
described in Mr. Willughby’s Ornithol. out of Clusius and others. He is more espe- 
cially distinguished from other bhds by the membranous hood on his head, the greatness 
and strength of his bill, the littleness of his wings, his bunchy tail, and the shortness of 
his legs. Abating his head and legs, he seems to be much like an ostrich, to which also 
he comes near as to the bigness of his body. He breeds in Mauris’s Island. The leg 
here preserved is covered with a reddish-yeEow scale. Not much above four inches long, 
yet above five in thickness, or round about the joints, wherein, though it be inferior to 
that of an Ostrich or Cassowary, yet, joined with its shortness, may render it of almost 
equal strength.’ At p. 73, there is the following notice: — ‘The head of the Man of 
War, called also Albitrosse; supposed by some to be the head of a Dodo, but it seems 
doubtful. That there is a bird called the Man of War is commonly known to our sea- 
men ; and several of them who have seen the head here preserved, do affirm it to he the 
head of that bird, which they describe to be a very great one, the wings whereof are 
eight feet over. And Ligon (Hist, of Barbad. p. 61), speaking of him, saith, that he 
will commonly fly out to sea to see what ships are coming to land, and so return. 
Whereas the Dodo is hardly a volatile bird, having little or no wings, except such as 
those of the Cassowary and the Ostrich. Besides, although the upper beak of this bill 
doth much resemble that of the Dodo, yet the nether is of a quite different shape ; so 
that this either is not the head of a Dodo, or else we have nowhere a true figure of it.’ 
Grew then gives a very lengthened description of the skull which is figured by him 
' This head, in the condition of a skull, has subsequently been discovered at Copenhagen. — E. 0. 
