94 
Vespertilio emarginatus, was added by Fleming. Aware, or, at least, suspecting, 
from our own cursory observation, that some few still remained undistinguished 
and undescribed, still we were little prepared for the acquisition of ten new species 
of British Cheiroptera. Such, however, is absolutely the case : seventeen species 
are now enumerated as inhabiting Great Britain; and so clearly characterized, 
both by Mr. Jenyns and Mr. Bell, as to leave no shadow of a doubt upon the 
zoologist’s mind, of their perfectly distinct nature. 
This large addition having rendered necessary a new systematic distribution of 
the British Cheiroptera , we propose, in our next Number, to present a Synoptical 
Sketch of the Families, Genera, and Species, according to Mr. Bell’s principles of 
characterization and plan of arrangement. To this, we shall prefix a cursory view 
of the anatomical structure of the Order to which these curious and interesting ani¬ 
mals belong: sincerely hoping that the little information which our confined limits 
will allow us to communicate, may spur on many of our readers to a deeper study of 
this yet unexhausted subject, and to a profitable use of the abundant sources from 
which our own supplies will be principally drawn—the admirable History of 
British Quadrupeds , by Mr. Bell; and the Article, Cheiroptera , in Dr. Todd’s 
excellent Cyclopoedia of Anatomy and Physiology. 
EXTRACTS FROM FOREIGN SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS. 
1.—M. De Blainville has published, in the Nouvelles Annates du Museum 
de TAcademic des Sciences, an account of the Dodo, or Dronte (Dipus ineptus, 
L.). This remarkable bird, only at present known by an oil painting of a dried foot 
preserved in the British Museum, and a head and foot in the University of Oxford, 
has occupied much of the ornithologist’s attention. It is, in fact, a remarkable 
circumstance that a bird of such magnitude should no longer be found, and that 
it should, as it were, have passed away from the face of nature. Besides 
the reflections that may attach to this and other circumstances, de Blainville has 
principally directed his researches towards establishing the zoological position of 
this strange bird. In 1497 and 1499, the Dodo was abundantly found by the 
Portuguese in an island beyond the Cape of Good Hope. The Dutch, in 1598, 
also found it in the same island, now called Maurice Island (Mauritius), Isle de 
Bourbon, Isle de France. Clusius, a Dutch author, in 1605, gave a description 
of this bird, under the name of Walgh-Vogel, or a disgusting bird, on account of 
its tough and bad-scented flesh. In 1634, Herbert describes this bird under the 
name of Dodo, which it still retains : he describes it as weighing upwards of fifty 
