The Dodo. 329 
It is just barely supported upon two short thick legs, 
like pillars ; while its head and neck rise from it in a 
manner truly grotesque. The neck, thick and pursy, is 
joined to the head, which consists of two immense jaws, 
opening far beyond the eye. The Dodo formerly inha- 
bited the Isle of France ; but it has been long extinct — 
so long, indeed, that the very fact of its ever having 
existed at all has been a subject of dispute amongst 
naturalists and scientific men. A great deal of evidence, 
in the form of old pictures as well as in writings, has 
been brought forward to prove that the Dodo is not a 
fabulous bird, and its reality is now generally admitted. 
In fact, we have very reliable testimony that a single 
specimen was actually exhibited publicly in London in 
the year 1638. 
The Dodo was supposed by the earliest naturalists 
who described it, to be a kind of turkey, as in the fla- 
vour of its flesh it resembled that bird. Later natural- 
ists supposed it to be a kind of swan, and this opinion 
was followed by the celebrated Buffon. Others thought 
it was a kind of vulture ; and others, judging from the 
shortness of its wings, placrd it in the ostrich tribe. 
Modern naturalists, however, having carefully examined 
the bones of the bird, which have been preserved, are of 
opinion that it was a gigantic pigeon. An entire speci- 
men existed about a hundred years ago in the Ashmolean 
Museum at Oxford, but only part of the bird and one of 
the feet remain; there is also a foot preserved in the 
British Museum. There is a reference to this extinct 
species in Humboldt's Cosmos. (See Bohn's edition, vol. i. 
page 29, and a note on the Dodo, by Dr. Mantell, at the 
end of the volume.) 
The Solitaire is another remarkable bird which was 
formerly found in the Mauritius and the adjoining 
islands, but which has now become extinct. 
