4 
her cloathing is of finest downe, such as you see in goslins ; her trayne is (like a China 
heard) of three or foure short feathers; her legs thick, and hlack, and strong; her 
tallons or pounces sharp; her stomack fiery hot, so as stones and iron are easily digested 
in it ; in that and shape, not a little resembling the Africk oestriches : but so much, as 
for their more certain difference I dare to give thee (with two others) her representa- 
tation.’ (4th ed. 1677*.) 
“ Nieremberg’s description (1655) may be considered a copy of that of Clusius, and 
indeed his whole work is a mere compilation. As we have seen above, he names the 
bird Cygnus cucullatus. 
“ In Tradescant’s catalogue (‘ Musseum Tradescantianum ; or, a Collection of Earities 
preserved at South Lambeth, near London, by John Tradescant,’ London, 1656, 12mo), 
we find among the ‘ Whole Birds’ — ‘ Dodar, from the island Mauritius ; it is not able to 
flie being so big.’ That this was a Dodo there can be no doubt; for we have the testi- 
mony of an eye-witness, whose ornithological competency cannot be doubted, in the 
affirmative. Willughby at the end of his section on ‘ The Dodo,’ and immediately 
beneath his translation of Bontius, has the following words: ‘We have seen thisr bird 
dried, or its skin stuft in Tradescant’s cabinet.’ We shall, hereafter, trace this specimen 
to Oxford. 
“ Jonston (1657) repeats the figure of Clusius, and refers to his description and that 
of Herbert. 
“ Bontius, edited by Piso (1658), writes as follows : ‘ Be Bronte aliis Bod-aers.’ After 
stating that among the islands of the East Indies is that which is called Cerne by some, 
but Mauritius ‘ a nostratibus,’ especially celebrated for its ebony, and that in the said 
island a bird ‘ mirse conformationis’ called Bronte abounds, he proceeds to tell us — we 
take Willughby’s translation — that it is ‘ for bigness of mean size between an ostrich and 
a turkey, from which it partly differs in shape, and partly agrees with them, especially 
with the African ostriches, if you consider the rump, quills, and feathers : so that it Avas 
like a pigmy among them, if you regard the shortness of its legs. It hath a great, ill- 
favoured head, covered with a kind of membrane resembling a hood ; great black eyes ; 
a bending, prominent, fat neck ; an extraordinary long, strong, bluish-white bill, only 
the ends of each mandible are of a different colour, that of the upper black, that of 
the nether yellowish, both sharp-pointed and crooked. It gapes huge wide as being 
naturally very voracious. Its body is fat, round, covered with soft grey feathers, after 
the manner of an ostriches : in each side, instead of hard wing-feathers or quills, it is 
furnished with small, soft-feathered wings, of a yellowish ash-colour ; and behind, the 
rump, instead of a tail, is adorned with five small curled feathers of the same colour. 
It hath yellow legs, thick, but very short ; four toes in each foot, solid, long, as it were 
' These and other grotesque figures, which may he seen, copied, iu Strickland’s History of the Dodo (‘ Dodo 
and its Kindred,’ 4to, 1848), from the old authors cited by Broderip, are mere matters of curiosity, and are 
here omitted as devoid of scientific value. 
