: 23 
In the voyage of Jacob Heemskerk and Wolfert Harmanz to the East Indies in 1601— 
1603 (small 4to, Amsterdam, 1648), the heavy short-winged birds of Mauritius are called 
‘* Dod-aarsen:” ‘‘they could not fly, and were so fat that they could scarcely go.” 
They fell therefore an easy prey to the Dutch voyagers, who seem to have visited the 
Mauritius, from the period of their conquest of the island in 1598 to about 1660, with 
the express object of provisioning their ships for the remainder of the voyage to India at 
the expense of the Dodos. Bontius (1658) says, “It is a slow-paced and stupid bird, 
and which easily becomes a prey to the fowlers. The flesh, especially of the breast, is 
fat, esculent, and so copious that three or four Dodos will sometimes suffice to fill an 
hundred seamen’s bellies. If they be old, or not well-boiled, they are of difficult diges- 
tion, and are salted and stored up for provision of victual. There are found in their 
stomachs stones of an ash-colour, of divers figures and magnitudes, yet not bred there, as 
the common people and seamen fancy, but swallowed by the bird.” The Dutch seem to 
have effected in the course of about two centuries the total extirpation of the Dodo. 
Tradescant, the botanist, had obtained a stuffed specimen from Holland in the reign 
of Queen Elizabeth. In the 12mo catalogue of his museum, entitled ‘Collection of 
Rarities, preserved at South Lambeth, near London,’ 1656, we find among the “ Whole 
Birds,”—‘* Dodar, from the island Mauritius; it is not able to flie, being so big.” 
Adam Olearius, in ‘Die Gottorfische Kuntskammer,’ 1666, gives a shaded figure 
of the head of the ‘ Walch Vogel’ of Clusius, and an outline of the rest of the bird, 
whence it was surmised that the head of a Dodo had existed in the museum of the 
Duke of Gottorf or Gottorp, and the skull was found and is now preserved in the Royal 
Museum of Copenhagen. 
The museum of the Tradescants, father and son, became the property of Dr. Elias 
Ashmole in 1664, who added much to the collection and afterwards presented it to the 
University of Oxford. The following evidence is there preserved of the unique specimen 
of the Dodo:—* In the Ashmolean Catalogue made by Ed. Llhwyd, Muszei Procustos, 
1684, the entry of the bird is ‘ No. 29, Gallus gallinaceus peregrinus Clusti,’ &c, Ina 
catalogue made subsequently to 1755, it is stated ‘that the numbers from 5 to 46 
being decayed, were ordered to be removed at a meeting of a majority of the visitors, 
January 8th, 1755.’ Among these of course was included the Dodo, its number being 
99” The order of the Visitors is recorded as follows :—* Illa quibus nullus in margine 
assignatur numerus a Museo subducta sunt cimelia annuentibus Vice-Cancellario aliisque 
Curatoribus ad ea lustranda convocatis, die Januarii 8vo, A.D. 1755.” 
This gives the date of destruction of the last stuffed specimen of the bird; but the 
dried head (pl. 16. fig. 5) and one foot (pls. 41 & 42) were preserved by the worthy Pro- 
custos, and soon rose to the rank of the chief rarities of the Ashmolean Museum. The 
help which science failed to receive from its then representatives was rendered by art. 
Years passed away: the island of Mauritius received accessions of colonists; the 
! Duncan on the Dodo, Zoological Journal, vol. iii, p. 559. 


