SIR HANS SLOANE. 
21 
the Duke of York, (afterwards James II.) with 
his Duchess, and the Princess Anne, (afterwards 
Queen of England.) It may be proper to mention, 
that among the remnants of Tradescant’s collec- 
tion still preserved, there are the bill and foot 
of the Dodo, ( Didus ineptus, Lin.*) a bird no 
longer in existence. “ It was first seen by the 
Dutch when they landed on the Isle of France, 
at that time uninhabited, immediately after the 
discovery of a passage to the East Indies by the 
Cape of Good Hope. It was of a large size and 
singular form ; its wings short, like those of an 
Ostrich, and wholly incapable of sustaining its 
heavy body even for a short flight. In its 
general appearance it differed from the Ostrich, 
Cassowary, or any known bird.” I “ The death 
of a species,” says Mr Lyell, “ is so remarkable 
an event in Natural History, that it deserves com- 
memoration ; and it is with no small interest that 
we learn from the archives of the University of 
Oxford, the exact day and year when the remains 
of the last specimen of the Dodo, which had been 
permitted to rot in the Ashmolean Museum, were 
cast away. The relics, we are told, were “a Museo 
subducta, annuente Vice-cancellario aliisque cura- 
* The Dodo is now supposed to form the Jtasoriai type 
among the Valuridce. See an excellent paper in the 
Nouvelles Annales des Sciences Naturelles. 
t Lyell’s Principles of Geology, vol. ii. p. 157, 8vo. 
edit. 
