was the editor. The reader may see in these works all the cooked the more unfit for food they became (quod quo lon-
detail of his public labours, his principles, and plan of lec-gius seu diutius elixarentur, plus lentescerent et esui in-
turing, and will easily understand from them the influence eptiores fierent). Their bellies and breasts were neverthe-
of his character on the body to which he belonged. One of less of a pleasant flavour (saporis jucundi) and easy of mas-
his descendants has within the last ten years given to the tication. Another cause for the appellation we gave them
world a very large collection of his correspondence and was the preferable abundance of turtle-doves which were of
private papers. In them we see his inmost mind
a far sweeter and more grateful flavour.' It will be ob-
DODE'CAGON, a figure of twelve sides; a term gene- served that the bill in De Bry's figure is comparatively
rally applied to an equiangular and equilateral (or regular) small.
dodecagon.

The side of a regular dodecagon inscribed in a circle is *5176380 of the radius; and of that about a circle 5358984 of the radius. Similarly the radii of the circles inscribed in and circumscribed about a dodecagon are 1·8660254 and 1 9318517 of the side. The area of a dodecagon is three times the square of the radius of the circumscribed circle, or 11 1961524 of the square on the side.

DODECAGY'NIA, the name of any order in the Linnean classification of plants wherein the number of styles is twelve.

DODECAHE'DRON. [SOLIDS, REGULAR.] DODECA'NDRIA, the twelfth class in the Linnean classification of plants. It contains species having twelve or about twelve stamens, provided they do not adhere by their filaments.

DODO, DIDUS, a genus of birds generally supposed to be extinct, and whose very existence has been doubted. We have taken some pains to collect the evidence on this subject, and we here present it to our readers.

WRITTEN AND PICTORIAL EVIDENCE.

*

Clusius, in his 'Exotica' (1605), gives a figure, here copied, which, he says, he takes from a rough sketch in a journal of a Dutch voyager who had seen the bird in a voyage to the Moluccas in the year 1598.

The following is Willughby's translation of Clusius, and the section is thus headed: The Dodo, called by Clusius Gallus gallinaceus peregrinus, by Nieremberg Cygnus cucullatus, by Bontius Dronte.' This exotic bird, found by the Hollanders in the island called Cygnæa or Cerne, (that is the Swan Island) by the Portuguese, Mauritius Island by the Low Dutch, of thirty miles' compass, famous especially for black ebony, did equal or exceed a swan in bigness, but was of a far different shape; for its head was great, covered as it were with a certain membrane resembling a hood: be side, its bill was not flat and broad, but thick and long; of a yellowish colour next the head, the point being black. The upper chap was hooked; in the nether had a bluish spot in the middle between the yellow and black part. They reported that it is covered with thin and short feathers, and wants wings, instead whereof it hath only four or five long black feathers; that the hinder part of the body is very fat and fleshy, wherein for the tail were four or five small curled feathers, twirled up together, of an ash-colour. Its legs are thick rather than long, whose upper part, as far as the knee, is covered with black feathers; the lower part, together with the feet, of a yellowish colour: its feet divided into four toes, three (and those the longer) standing forward, the fourth and shortest backward: all furnished with black claws. After I had composed and writ down the history of this bird with as much diligence and faithfulness as I could, I happened to see in the house of Peter Pauwius, primary professor of physic in the university of Leyden, a leg thereof cut off at the knee, lately brought over out of Mauritius his island. It was not very long, from the knee to the bending of the foot being but little more than four inches, but of a great thickness, so that it was almost four inches in compass, and covered with thick-set scales, on the upper side broader, and of a yellowish colour, on the under (or backside of the leg) lesser and dusky. The upper side of the toes was also covered with broad scales, the under side wholly callous. The toes were short for so thick a leg: for the length of the greatest or middlemost toe to the nail did not much exceed two inches, that of the other toe next to it scarce came up to two inches: the back-toe fell something short of an inch and a half; but the claws of all were thick, hard, black, less than an inch long; but that of the back-toe longer than the rest, exceeding an inch.* The mariners, in their dialect, gave this bird the name Walgh-Vögel, that is, a nauseous or yellowish bird; partly because after long boiling its flesh became not tender, but continued hard and of a difficult concoction, excepting the breast and gizzard, which they found to be of no bad relish, partly because they could easily get many turtle-doves, which were much more delicate and pleasant to the palate. Wherefore it was no wonder that in comparison of those they despised this, and said they could be well content without it. Moreover they said that they found certain stones in its gizzard, and no wonder, for all other birds, as well as these, swallow stones, to assist them in grinding their meat.' Thus far Clusius.'

It appears that Vasco de Gama, after having doubled the Cape of Good Hope (Cabo Tormentoso, or Cape of Storms) in 1497, discovered, at sixty leagues beyond it, a bay, Angra de San Blaz, near an isle, where he saw a very great number of birds of the form of a goose, but with wings like those of the bats, which the sailors called solitaries. On their return, in 1499, the Portuguese touched again at San Blaz, where they took a great number of these birds, and coinparing them to swans, called the island 'Ilha des Cisnes,' Isle of Swans. In the voyage to the East Indies, in 1598, by Jacob Van Neck and Wybrand van Warwijk (small 4to., Amsterdam, 1648,) there is a description of the Walgh vo gels in the island of Cerne, now called Mauritius, as being as large as our swans, with large heads, and a kind of hood thereon; no wings, but, in place of them, three or four black little pens (pennekens), and their tails consisting of four or five curled plumelets (pluymkens) of a greyish colour. The breast is spoken of as very good, but it is stated that the voyagers preferred some turtle-doves that they found there. The bird appears with a tortoise near it, in a small engraving, one of six which form the prefixed plate.

In the frontispiece to De Bry (Quinta Pars India Orientalis, &c., M.DCI), surmounting the architectural design of the title-page, will be found, we believe, the earliest engravings of the Dodo. A pair of these birds stand on the cornice on each side, and the following cut is taken from the figure on the left hand.

In the voyage of Jacob Heemskerk and Wolfert HarAmsterdam, 1648), folio 19, the Dod-aarsen (Dodos) are enumerated among the birds of the island of Cerne, now Mauritius;' and in the 'Journal of the East Indian Voyage of Willem Ysbrantsz Bontekoe van Hoorn, comprising

In De Bry's Descriptio Insula Do Cerne a nobis Mauri-mansz to the East Indies, in 1601, 1602, 1603 (small 4to., tius dicta' is the following account: Cærulean parrots also are there in great numbers, as well as other birds; besides which there is another larger kind, greater than our swans, with vast heads, and one half covered with a skin, as it were, hooded. These birds are without wings, in the place of which are three or four rather black feathers (quarum loco tres quatuorve pennæ nigriores prodeunt). A few curved delicate ash-coloured feathers constitute the tail. These birds we called Walck-Vögel, because the longer they were It is stated (BOURBON, vol. v., p. 277) that the island of Bourbon was discovered by the Portuguese navigator, Mascarenhas in 1542, and at that time was not inhabited; and that it received the name of Mascarenhas or Mascareigne,

We are indebted to Mr. Gray for the following measurement of the foot in
the British Museum: Knee to ancle 44 inches; circumference 4 inches;
middle toe 3 inches; back toe 14 inch; front claws, which are met the leg
8 lines; back claw, also much worn, shorter.
Mr. Gray observes that
mentioned by Clusius is probably, from the similarity of the measurement,
the specimen which was afterwards noticed by Grew, and finally came to the

British Museum.

+So in Willughby, but the print is somewhat indistinct, and there may be error. In the original the words are Waigh-Vogel, hoc est, nauseam movens avis, partim quod, &c.,' the word therefore is an interpolation.

It appears from Adam Olearius (Die Gottorfische Kunst Kammer, 1666), that there was a head to be seen in the Gottorf Museum; but the figure (Tab. xiii. f. 5) is very like that of Clusius. It is mentioned as the head of the WalchVogel and Clusius is referred to. In the plate the head is shaded, and has a more finished appearance: the rest of the bird is in outline.

same side during the space of four or five minutes; the motion of their wings makes then a noise very like that of a rattle, and one may hear it two hundred paces off. The bone of their wing grows greater towards the extremity, and forms a little round mass under the feathers as big as a musket-ball: that and its beak are the chief defence of this bird. "Tis very hard to catch it in the woods, but easy in open places, because we run faster than they, and sometimes we approach them without much trouble. From March to September they are extremely fat, and taste admirably well, especially while they are young; some of the males weigh forty-five pound.

'The females are wonderfully beautiful, some fair, some brown; I call them fair because they are of the colour of fair hair: they have a sort of peak, like a widow's, upon their breasts, which is of a dun colour. No one feather is straggling from the other all over their bodies, being very careful to adjust themselves and make them all even with their beaks. The feathers on their thighs are round like shells at the end, and being there very thick, have an agreeable effect: they have two risings on their craws, and the feathers are whiter there than the rest, which livelily represent the fine neck of a beautiful woman. They walk with so much stateliness and good grace, that one cannot help admiring them and loving them, by which means their fine mien often saves their lives.

Grew (Museum Regalis Societatis; or a catalogue and
description of the natural and artificial rarities belonging
to the Royal Society,' London, folio, 1681), at p. 68, thus
describes the bird which is the subject of our inquiry.
The leg of a Dodo; called Cygnus cucullatus by Nierem-
bergius; by Clusius, Gallus gallinaceus peregrinus; by
Bontius called Dronte, who saith that by some it is called
(in Dutch) Dod-aers, largely described in Mr. Willughby's
Ornithol. out of Clusius and others. He is more especially
distinguished from other birds by the membranous hood
on his head, the greatness and strength of his bill, the
littleness of his wings, his bunchy tail, and the shortness of
his legs. Abating his head and legs, he seems to be much
like an ostrich, to which also he comes near as to the big-
ness of his body. He breeds in Mauris's Island. The leg
here preserved is covered with a reddish-yellow scale. Not
much above four inches long, yet above five in thickness,
or round about the joints, wherein, though it be inferior to
that of an Ostrich or Cassowary, yet, joined with its short-
ness, may render it of almost equal strength.' At p. 73,
there is the following notice: The head of the Man of
War, called also Albitrosse; supposed by some to be the
head of a Dodo, but it seems doubtful. That there is a bird
called the Man of War is commonly known to our seamen;
and several of them who have seen the head here preserved,
do affirm it to be the head of that bird, which they de-
scribe to be a very great one, the wings whereof are eight
feet over.
And Ligon (Hist. of Barbad., p. 61), speaking
of him, saith, that he will commonly fly out to sea to see
what ships are coming to land, and so return. Whereas
the Dodo is hardly a volatile bird, having little or no wings,
except such as those of the Cassowary and the Ostrich.
Besides, although the upper beak of this bill doth much
resemble that of the Dodo, yet the nether is of a quite
different shape; so that this either is not the head of a
Dodo, or else we have nowhere a true figure of it.' Grew
then gives a very lengthened description of the skull which
is figured by him (Tab. 6), and intituled Head of the
Albitros,' as it doubtless was. The leg above mentioned is
that now preserved in the British Museum, where it was
deposited with the other specimens described by Grew,
when the Royal Society gave their 'rarities' to that national
establishment. Grew was a well qualified observer, and
much of this description implies observation and compa-
rison; indeed, though he does not refer to it, there is no
reason for supposing that Grew was not familiar with Tra-
descant's specimen.

6

Charleton also (Onomasticon, 1688) speaks of the Dodo Lusitanorum, Cygnus cucullatus, Willughby and Ray, and asserts that the Museum of the Royal Society of London contained a leg of the Dodo. This was evidently the leg above alluded to.

Leguat, in his description* of the Isle, which is called either Diego-Rodrigo, or Diego-Ruys, or Rodrigo,' gives the following account. We had also another creek on the other side of our cabbins, and full of oysters sticking to the rock. We went often to breakfast there, and brought some home, with which we made an excellent ragout with palm-tree-cabbages and turtle's fat. Of all the birds in the island, the most remarkable is that which goes by the name of the Solitary (le Solitaire), because it is very seldom seen in company, though there are abundance of them. The feathers of the males are of a brown-grey colour; the feet and beak are like a turkey's, but a little more crooked. They have scarce any tail, but their hind part covered with feathers is roundish, like the crupper of a horse; they are taller than turkeys. Their neck is straight, and a little longer in proportion than a turkey's when it lifts up its head. Its eye is black and lively, and its head without comb or cop. They never fly, their wings are too little to support the weight of their bodies; they serve only to beat themselves and flutter when they call one another. They will whirl about for twenty or thirty times together on the

A new voyage to the East Indies by Francis Leguat and his compauions, containing their adventures in two Desert Islands, &c.,' 8vo., London, 1708. P. C., No. 537.

"Though these birds will sometimes very familiarly come up near enough to one when we do not run after them, yet they will never grow tame: as soon as they are caught they shed tears without crying, and refuse all manner of sustenance till they die. We find in the gizzards of both male and female a brown stone, of the bigness of a hen's egg; it is somewhat rough, flat on one side, and round on the other, heavy and hard. We believe this stone was there when they were hatched, for let them be never so young, you meet with it always. They have never but one of them; and besides, the passage from the craw to the gizzard is so narrow, that a like mass of half the bigness could not pass. It served to whet our knives better than any other stone whatsoever. When these birds build their nests they choose a clean place, gather together some palmleaves for that purpose, and heap them up a foot and a half high from the ground, on which they sit. They never lay but one egg, which is much bigger than that of a goose. The male and female both cover it in their turns, and the young is not hatched till at seven weeks' end: all the while they are sitting upon it, or are bringing up their young one,

In the Ashmolean Catalogue, made by Ed. Llhwyd, Musæi Procustos, 1684 (Plott being the keeper), the entry of the bird is "No. 29. Gallus gallinaceus peregrinus Clusii, &c." In a 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 the majority of the visitors, Jan. 8, 1755." Among these of course was included the Dodo, its number being 29. This is further shown by a new Catalogue, completed in 1756, in which the order of the visitors is recorded as follows: "Illa quibus nullus in margine assignatur numerus a Musao subducta sunt cimelia, annuentibus Vice-Cancellario aliisque Curatoribus ad ea lustranda convocatis, die Januarii 8vo., A.D. 1755." The Dodo is one of those which are here without the number.' (Dun can On the Dodo; Zool. Journ., vol. iii., p. 559.)

which is not able to provide for itself in several months, they | the Museum at Oxford. There, according to Mr. Duncan, will not suffer any other bird of their species to come within it was destroyed in 1755 by order of the visitors, and he thus two hundred yards round of the place; but what is very sin- gives the evidence of its destruction:gular is, the males will never drive away the females, only when he perceives one he makes a noise with his wings to call the female, and she drives the unwelcome stranger away, not leaving it till it is without her bounds. The female does the same as to the males, whom she leaves to the male, and he drives them away. We have observed this several times, and I affirm it to be true. The combats between them on this occasion last sometimes pretty long, because the stranger only turns about, and does not fly directly from the nest: however, the others do not forsake it till they have quite driven it out of their limits. After these birds have raised their young one, and left it to itself, they are always together, which the other birds are not; and though they happen to mingle with other birds of the same species, these two companions never disunite. We have often remarked, that some days after the young one leaves the nest, a company of thirty or forty brings another young one to it, and the new-fledged bird, with its father and mother joining with the band, march to some bye place. We frequently followed them, and found that afterwards the old ones went each their way alone, or in couples, and left the two young ones together, which we called a marriage. This particularity has something in it which looks a little fabulous; nevertheless, what I say is sincere truth, and what I have more than once observed with care and pleasure.' The worthy narrator then indulges in some reflections on marriages in general, and early marriages in particular. It is worthy of note, with reference to the alleged juxtaposition of the bones of a large land-turtle and those of the dodo, to which we shall have occasion to allude, that the same author, in the description of the same island, speaks of the multitude of land-turtles; of which he says, 'I have seen one that weighed one hundred pound, and had flesh enough about it to feed a good number of men.'

The preceding cut is copied from Leguat's figure of the Solitary Bird.'

In the frontispiece is represented one in a sort of landscape, and also land-turtles; and in a plan of the settlement' in the Island of Rodrigo, many, some in pairs, are placed about. This plan shows the situation of the houses, &c., of Leguat and his companions: there are also landturtles and other animals.*

We now proceed to trace the specimen which was in the Museum Tradescantianum. There were, it seems, three Tradescants, grandfather, father, and son. The two former are said to have been gardeners to Queen Elizabeth, and the latter to Charles I. There are two portraits to the Museum,' one of Joannes Tradescantus pater' and the other of Joannes Tradescantus filius,' by Hollar. These two appear to have been the collectors: for John Tradescant, the son, writes in his address to the ingenious reader' that he was resolved to take a catalogue of those varieties and curiosities which my father had scedulously collected and my selfe with continued diligence have augmented, and hitherto preserved together.' This John Tradescant, the son, must have been the Tradescant with whom Elias Ashmole boarded for a summer when Ashmole agreed to purchase the collection, which was said to have been conveyed to Ashmole by deed of gift from Tradescant and his wife. Tradescant died soon after and Ashmole, in 1662, filed a bill in Chancery for a delivery of the curiosities. The cause is stated to have come to a hearing in 1664; and, in 1674, Mrs. Tradescant delivered up the collection pursuant to a decree in Chancery, and afterwards (April, 1678, some say) was found drowned in her own pond. Ashmole added to the collection, and presented it to the University of Oxford, where it became the foundation of the Ashmolean Museum. That the entire Dodar' went to Oxford with the rest of Tradescant's curiosities there can be no doubt. Hyde (Religionis Veterum Persarum, &c., Historia, 1700) makes particular mention of it as existing in

Le premier auteur qui ait parlé du Solitaire paroit être Castelaton, dans le récit d'un voyage fait en 1614. et publié seulement en 1690, Il toucha à l'île de Bourbon, alors nommée Mascaraigne par les Portugais, et encore inhabitée, quoique visitée depuis long-temps par les navigateurs. les oiseaux qu'il y remarqua, il en particularise une espece de la grosseur Parmi d'un oie, très grande, avec des ailes courtes qui ne lui permettoient pas de voler. Cet oiseau avoit été, dit-il, nommé jusque là le géant, et l'île de France en produit beaucoup; il est blanc, et naturellement si doux, qu'on peut le prendre à la main: du moins ils étoient si peu effrayés à la vue des matelots, qu'il leur étoit aisé d'en tuer un très grand nombre avec des bâtons et des pierres. (De Blainville.)

Upon this solemn sentence, which left to the Museum nothing but a foot and a head, Lyell makes the following observation: Some have complained that inscriptions on tomb-stones convey no general information, except that individuals were born and died, accidents which must happen alike to all men. But the death of a species is so remarkable an event in natural history that it deserves commemoration; and it is with no small interest that we learn from the archives of the University of Oxford, the exact day and year, when the remains of the last specimen of the Dodo, which had been permitted to rot in the Ashmolean Museum, were cast away and the author concludes by giving the fatal record at length with becoming gravity.

We now come to the celebrated painting in the British Museum, a copy of which, by the kind assistance of the officers of the zoological department, who have given us every assistance in prosecuting this inquiry, and who had it taken down for the purpose, we present to our readers.

It has been stated that the painting came into the posses-
sion of Sir Hans Sloane, president of the Royal Society, and
that it was bought at his sale by Edwards, who, after pub-
lishing a plate from it in his Gleanings, presented it to the
Royal Society, whence it passed, as well as the foot, into the
British Museum. But Mr. Gray informs us that the
foot only came with the museum of the Royal Society de-
scribed by Grew; and that the picture was an especial gift
from Edwards. Edwards's copy seems to have been made
in 1760, and he himself says The original picture was
drawn in Holland from the living bird brought from St.
Maurice's Island in the East Indies in the early times of
the discovery of the Indies by the way of the Cape of Good
Hope. It was the property of the late Sir Hans Sloane to
the time of his death; and afterwards becoming my pro-
perty I deposited it in the British Museum as a great curi-
osity. The above history of the picture I had from Sir Hans
Sloane and the late Dr. Mortimer, secretary to the Royal
Society.'

M. Morel, Ecrivain Principal des Hôpitaux au Port-
Louis de l'Isle de France, writes as follows in his paper
'Sur les oiseaux monstrueux nommés Dronte, Dodo, Cygne
Capuchonné, Solitaire, et Oiseau de Nazare, et sur la petite
Isle de Sable à 50 lieues environ de Madagascar.'
'These
birds, so well described in the second volume of the "His-
tory of Birds', by M. le Comte de Buffon, and of which M.
de Borame has also spoken in his Dictionary of Natural
History,' under the names of Dronte, Dodo, Hooded Swan
(Cygne Capuchonné), Solitary or Wild Turkey (Dinde sau-
vage) of Madagascar, have never been seen in the isles of
France, Bourbon, Rodriguez, or even the Seychelles lately
discovered, during more than 60 years since when these
places have been inhabited and visited by French colonists.
The oldest inhabitants assure every one that these mon-
strous birds have been always unknown to them.' After
some remarks that the Portuguese and Dutch who first
overran these islands may have seen some very large birds,
such as Emeus or Cassowaries, &c., and described them
each after his own manner of observing, M. Morel thus pro-
ceeds: However this may be, it is certain that for nearly
an age (depuis près un siècle) no one has here seen an ani-
islands were inhabited, people might have been able to find
mal of this species. But it is very probable that before the
some species of very large birds, heavy and incapable of
flight, and that the first mariners who sojourned there soon
destroyed them from the facility with which they were
caught. This was what made the Dutch sailors call the

r. Duncan,

nd he thus

hwyd, Mue entry of

nus Clusi, it is stated yed, were rity of the

s included

hown by a rder of the as in mar t cimelia, bus ad ea

The Dodo

- (Dun

Museum following tions on that inhappen Temarkmemon from

ay and Ďodo, seum,

g the

British of the

en us

ad it

sses

and

sub

the

the

the

de

rift

de

as

St.

of

We close this part of the case with the evidence of one evidently well qualified to judge, and whose veracity there is no reason to doubt. If this evidence be, as we believe it to be, unimpeachable, it is clear not only that the Dodo existed, but that it was publicly exhibited in London. The lacunæ in the print represent the spaces occasioned by a hole burnt in the manuscript.

Dodo, from the picture in the British Museum.
bird 'Oiseaude dégoût' (Walck-Voegel), because they were
surfeited with the flesh of it. *** But among all the
species of birds which are found on this isle of sand and on
all the other islets and rocks which are in the neighbour-
hood of the Isle of France, modern navigators have never
found anything approaching to the birds above named, and
which may be referred to the number of species which may
have existed, but which have been destroyed by the too great
facility with which they are taken, and which are no longer
found excepting upon islands or coasts entirely uninhabited.
At Madagascar, where there are many species of birds
unknown in these islands, none have been met with resem-Estridge' (Ostrich).
bling the description above alluded to.' (Observations sur
la Physique pour l'an 1778, tom. xii., p. 154. Notes.)

Mr. Duncan thus concludes his paper above alluded to:
Having applied, through the medium of a friend, to C. Tel-
fair, Esq. of Port Louis, in the Mauritius, a naturalist of
great research, for any information he could furnish or pro-
cure relating to the former existence of the Dodo in that
island, I obtained only the following partly negative state-

ment:

That there is a very general impression among the inha-
bitants that the Dodo did exist at Rodriguez, as well as in
the Mauritius itself; but that the oldest inhabitants have
never seen it, nor has the bird or any part of it been preserved
in any museum or collection formed in those islands, al-
though some distinguished amateurs in natural history have
passed their lives on them, and formed extensive collections.
And with regard to the supposed existence of the Dodo in
Madagascar, although Mr. Telfair had not received, at the
time of his writing to Europe, a reply to a letter on the sub-
ject which he had addressed to a gentleman resident on
that island, yet he stated that he had not any great expecta-
tious from that quarter; as the Dodo was not mentioned in
any of his voluminous manuscripts respecting that island,

which contained the travels of persons who had traversed
Madagascar in all directions, many of them having no other
object in view than that of extending the bounds of natural
history'

In Sloane MSS. (No. 1839, 5, p. 108, Brit. Mus.) is the following interesting account by L'Estrange in his observations on Sir Thomas Browne's 'Vulgar Errors.' It is worthy of note that the paragraph immediately follows one on the

vas

About 1638, as I walked London streets I saw the picture of a strange fowl hong out upon a cloth and myselfe with one or two more Gen. 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 but stouter and thicker and of a more erect shape, coloured before like the breast of a yong Cock Fesan (pheasant), and on the back 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 hee gave it many in our sight, some as bigg as nutmegs, and the keeper told us shee eats them conducing to digestion and though I remember not how farre the keeper was questioned therein yet I am confident that afterwards she cast them all agayne.'*

at

EVIDENCE ARISING FROM REMAINS.

The only existing recent remains attributed to the Dodo are, a leg in the British Museum, and a head (a cast of which is in Brit. Mus.), and a leg in the Ashmolean Museum Oxford, the relics most probably of Tradescant's bird. Whether the leg formerly in the museum of Pauw be that at present in the British Museum may be, perhaps, doubly ful, though we think with Mr. Gray that they are probably

This curious statement is extracted in the recent edition of Sir Thomas
Brown's works by Wilkins: published by Pickering.
H 2