304 
THE DODO. 
they would never have ventured to attempt, so peculiarly are 
they in body and limb unfitted for swimming, without some 
internal capacity similar to the above. ^ 
Of the last bird in this list, the Dodo, no particulars are 
known. The following account of one exhibited in London 
is the only instance, we believe, on record of its appearance 
as a living species in modern times ; we give it on the 
authority of Sir Hamon L’ Estrange, quoted in Sir Thomas 
Browne’s works, vol. ii., p. 174. “ About 1638, as I walked 
London streets, I sawe the picture of a strange fowle hang 
out, and myselfe, with one or two more then in company, 
went in to see it. It was kept in a chamber, and was a 
great fowle, somewhat bigger than the largest Turkey-cock, 
and so legged and footed, hut shorter and thicker, and of a 
more erect shape, couloured before like the breast of a young 
cock Eesan, and on the hack of dunn or deare coulour. The 
keeper called it a Dodo, and in the ende of a chimney in the 
chamber there lay an heap of large pebble stones, whereof he 
gave it many in our sight, some as bigge as nutmegs, and 
the keeper told us shee eate them, conducing unto digestion ; 
and though I remember not how far the keeper was questioned 
herein, yet I am confident that afterwards shee cast them all 
agayne.” 
Whether this bird was, however, after all, a real Dodo is 
very questionable; for although there is no doubt of its 
having been in former times abundant in some of the islands 
of the Indian Ocean, it is supposed to have long ago ceased 
to exist, and is therefore generally considered by naturalists 
as extinct a species as those animals whose hones are occa- 
sionally found in a fossil state, in rocks and caves. 
* See note on the pouch of the Hurgila, p. 325. 
