2 
“ In De Bry’s ‘ Descriptio Insulae Do Cerne a nobis Mauritius dictae ’ is the following 
account : — ‘ Caerulean Parrots also are there in great numbers, as well as other birds ; 
besides which there is another larger kind, greater than our swans, with vast heads, and 
one half covered with a skin, as it were, hooded. These birds are without wings, in the 
place of which are three or four rather black feathers (quarum loco tres quatuorve 
pennee nigriores prodeunt). A few curved delicate ash-coloured feathers constitute the 
tail. These birds we called Walck-V'dgel, because the longer they were cooked the 
more unfit for food they became (quod quo longius seu diutius elixarentur, plus 
lentescerent et esui ineptiores fierent). Their bellies and breasts were nevertheless of 
a pleasant flavour (saporis jucundi) and easy of mastication. Another cause for the 
appellation we gave them was the preferable abundance of Turtle-doves which were of 
a far sweeter and more grateful flavour.’ It will be observed that the bill in De Bry’s 
figure is comparatively small. 
“ Clusius, in his ‘Exotica’ (1605), gives a figure, here copied” (note ^ p. 4), “which, 
he says, he takes from a rough sketch in a journal of a Dutch voyager who had seen 
the bird in a voyage to the Moluccas in the year 1598. 
“ The following is Willughby’s translation of Clusius, and the section is thus headed: 
‘ The Dodo, called by Clusius Qallus galUnaceus peregrinus, by Nieremberg Cygnus 
cucullatus, by Bontius Bromte! ‘This exotic bird, found by the Hollanders in the 
island called Cygnsea or Cerne (that is the Swan Island) by the Portuguese, Mauritius 
Island by the Low Dutch, of thirty miles’ compass, famous especially for black ebony, 
did equal or exceed a swan in bigness, but was of a far different shape ; for its head 
was great, covered as it were with a certain membrane resembling a hood : beside, its 
bill was not flat and broad, but thick and long ; of a yellowish colour next the head, 
the point being black. The upper chap was hooked ; in the nether had a bluish spot 
in the middle between the yellow and black part. They reported that it is covered with 
thin and short feathers, and wants wings, instead whereof it hath only four or five long 
black feathers ; that the hinder part of the body is very fat and fleshy, wherein for the 
tail were four or five small curled feathers, twirled up together, of an ash colour. Its 
legs are thick rather than long, whose upper part, as far as the knee, is covered with 
black feathers ; the lower part, together with the feet, of a yellowish colour ; its feet 
divided into four toes, three (and those the longer) standing forward, the fourth and 
shortest backward: all furnished with black claws. After I had composed and writ 
down the history of this bird with as much diligence and faithfulness as I could, I 
happened to see in the house of Peter Pauwius, primary professor of physic in the 
University of Leyden, a leg thereof cut off at the knee, lately brought over out of 
Mauritius his island. It was not very long, from the knee to the bending of the foot 
being but little more than four inches, but of a great thickness, so that it was almost 
four inches in compass, and covered with thick-set scales, on the upper side broader, and 
of a yellowish colour, on the under (or back side of the leg) lesser and dusky. The 
