Mr. G. Clark’s Account of Dodos’ Remains. 
141 
XIII.— Account of the late Discovery of Dodos’ Remains in the 
Island of Mauritius *. By George Clark. 
Haying had the good fortune to discover a considerable deposit 
of the remains of the Dodo ( Didus ineptus), I conceive that the 
particulars of an event so interesting to all lovers of natural 
history may be acceptable to the readers of 'The Ibis/ and I 
therefore offer the following statement to its pages. 
I have been nearly thirty years a resident in Mauritius ; and 
the study of natural history having been the favourite recrea¬ 
tion of my life, the hope of finding some remains of the unique 
and extinct bird that once inhabited this island led me to make 
many inquiries and researches, alike fruitless. After many 
years of expectation, I had given up my efforts in despair, when, 
some four or five years ago, the late Dr. P. Ayres visited Mahe- 
bourg, the place of my residence. We had previously exchanged 
several communications on subjects of natural history, and on 
this occasion visited together the site of the old Dutch and 
French settlements on the coast opposite Mahebourg. 
Dr. Ayres suggested to me the probability of finding some re¬ 
mains of the Dodo by digging around the mins of these habita¬ 
tions ; but I did not conceive that the plan offered any chance 
of success. This locality lies at the foot of a mountain called 
La Montagne du Grand Port, from which, in the rainy season, 
such floods pour down as carry into the sea everything resting 
on the surface of the ground. In fact there is no part of Mau¬ 
ritius where the soil is of such a nature as to render probable 
the accidental interment of substances thrown upon it. It may 
be classed under four heads: stiff clay; large masses of stone 
forming a chaotic surface; strata of melted lava, locally called 
paves, impervious to everything; and loam, intermixed with 
fragments of vesicular basalt,—the latter too numerous and too 
thickly scattered to allow anything to sink into the mass by the 
mere force of gravity. Besides this, the tropical rains, of which 
the violence is well known, sweep the surface of the earth in many 
places with a force sufficient to displace stones of several hundred 
pounds weight* In the presence of these facts, I remarked to Dr. 
* [Vide supra, p. 128 .—Ed.] 
/ . 
