hat the bird

A bird of so never been the island.

ed at Rodrich annoyed nerous, and gested the ge kind of

the young ion which

nd was in

lfair were ciely. At the table, es of ene es of the

humerus, -d, which

tit pos directed e Dodo as also c. 1833

des Ois. i. p. 485; Leguat it. í. p. 98; Solitary Dodo, Lath.
Syn. iii. 1, p. 3, n. 2. This species is described by Gmelin
as varied with grey and brown, with tetradactyle feet.'
3rd. Didus Nazarenus; Oiseau de Nazareth, et Õiseau de
Nausée, Buff. Hist. Nat. des Ois. i. p. 485; Cauche, Madag.
p. 130; Nazarene Dodo, Lath. Syn. iii. 1, p. 4, n. 3. Gmelin
describes this species as 'black, with tetradactyle feet.'
Blumenbach followed Linnæus ; and Duméril and Vieillot
followed Latham.

Temminck instituted in his 'Analyse du Système Général
d'Ornithologie,' the order Inertes, for the Dodo and the
Apteryx; two birds, as Mr. Yarrell in his paper on the
Apteryx (Trans. Zool. Soc., vol. i., p. 71) observes, differing
decidedly from each other in their beaks; but in reference
to their imperfect wings, as also in the nature of their
external covering, having obvious relation to the species
included in his order Cursores. But,' adds Mr. Yarrell, 'the
situation chosen for this order Inertes, at the extreme end
of his systematic arrangement, leads me to infer that M.
Temminck considered as imaginary the subjects for which
it was formed.'

Illiger, in his Prodromus (1811), instituted the order Inepti for the reception of the Dodo alone, Apteryx not being then known, and he placed it immediately preceding his Cursores, containing the Struthious Birds.

what authority it has been stated to belong to the Dodo, I am at a loss to determine. A painting by Edwards still exists in the British Museum.'

This hasty judgment,' says Mr. Duncan in his paper in the Zoological Journal, 'is fully refuted, especially by the existing head, and the exact resemblance of the leg at Oxford to that in London.'

Mr. Vigors, in his paper On the Natural Affinities that connect the Orders and Families of Birds' (Linn. Trans., vol. xiv., p. 395, read December 3, 1823), thus writes on the subject of the Dodo: Considerable doubts have arisen as to the present existence of the Linnæan Didus; and they have been increased by the consideration of the numberless opportunities that have latterly occurred of ascertaining the existence of these birds in those situations, the isles of Mauritius and Bourbon, where they were originally alleged to have been found. That they once existed I believe cannot be questioned. Besides the descriptions given by voyagers of undoubted authority, the relics of a specimen preserved in the public repository of this country, bear decisive record of the fact. The most probable supposition that we can form on the subject is, that the race has become extinct in the before-mentioned islands, in consequence of the value of the bird as an article of food to the earlier settlers, and its incapability of escaping from pursuit. This conjecture is strengthened by the consideration of the gradual decrease of a nearly conterminous group, the Otis tarda of our British ornithology, which, from similar causes, we have every reason to suspect will shortly be lost to this country. We may, however, still entertain some hopes that the Didus may be recovered in the south-eastern part of that vast continent, hitherto so little explored, which adjoins those islands, and whence, indeed, it seems to have been originally imported into them. I dwell upon these circumstances with more particularity, as the disappearance of this group gives us some grounds for asserting, that many chasms which occur in the chain of affinities throughout nature may be accounted for on the supposition of a similar extinction of a connecting species. Here we have an instance of the former existence of a species that, as far as we can now conclude, is no longer to be found; while the link which it supplied in nature was of considerable importance. The bird in question, from every account which we have of its economy, and from the appearance of its head and foot, is decidedly Gallinaceous; and, from the insufficiency of its wings for the purposes of flight, it may with equal certainty be pronounced to be of the Struthious structure, and referable to the present family. But the foot has a strong hind toe, and, with the exception of its being more robust,-in which character it still adheres to the Struthionidæ,-it corresponds exactly with the foot of the Linnæan genus Crax, that commences the succeeding family. The bird thus becomes osculant, and forms a strong point of junction between these two conterminous groups; which, though evidently approaching each other in general points of similitude, would not exhibit that intimate bond of connexion which we have seen to prevail almost uniformly throughout the neighbouring subdivisions of nature, were it not for the intervention of this important genus.'

Cuvier, in the first edition of his Règne Animal at the
end of his notice on his family Brevipennes (Les Autruches,
Struthio, Linn.), has the following note appended to his
description of the last species, Rhea. 'I cannot place in
this table species but badly known, or, more, so little au-
thentic as those which compose the genus Didus. The first
or the Dronte (Didus ineptus) is only known from a de-
scription given by the first Dutch navigators, and preserved
by Clusius, Exot. p. 99, and by an oil-painting of the same
epoch copied by Edwards, pl. 294; for the description of
Herbert is puerile, and all the others are copied from Clu-
sius and Edwards. It would seem that the species has en-
tirely disappeared, and we now possess no more of it at the
present day than a foot preserved in the British Museum
(Shaw, Nat. Miscell. pl. 143), and a head in bad condition
in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. The bill does not
seem to be without some relation to that of the Auks (Pin-
gouins), and the foot would bear considerable resemblance
to that of the Penguins (Manchots), if it were palmated.
The second species, or the Solitaire (Didus Solitarius),
rests only on the testimony of Leguat, Voy. i. p. 98, a man
who has disfigured the best known animals, such as the
Hippopotamus and Lamantin. Finally, the third species,
or L'Oiseau de Nazare (Didus Nazarenus), is only known
through François Cauche, who regards it as the same as
the Dronte, and yet only gives it three toes, while all other
authors give four to the Dronte. No one has been able to
see any of these birds since these voyagers.' In the second
edition (1829), the note is repeated with the addition of a
notice of Apteryx. With every reverence for the great
zoologist who wrote it, it is impossible to avoid observing
the haste and incorrectness which mark it. His opinions
certainly underwent considerable modification. When he
was in this country at the period of the last French revo-
lution, he had an opportunity of seeing the head preserved
in the Ashmolean Museum, and the foot in the British
Museum, and he doubted the identity of this species with
that of which the painting is preserved in the National
collection. Lyell mentions these doubts, and we must
here recall to the reader the geologist's statement above
alluded to, that Cuvier showed him the valuable remains in
Paris, and that he assured him that they left no doubt on
his mind that the huge bird was one of the Gallinaceous
tribe. (Sur Quelques Ossemens, &c., Ann. des Sci., tome
xxi., p. 103, Sept., 1830.)

M. Lesson, in his Manual (1828), after giving a descrip-
tion of the Dodo (genus Dronte, Didus, Linn., Raphus,
Moehring, Brisson), says that the genus includes but one
species which may be considered as at all authenticated,
and which exists no longer; this is the Dronte, Didus
ineptus, described by Clusius, ex. p. 99, figured by Edwards,
pl. 294. They possess,' he adds, a foot and head of it at
London, figured in Shaw's Miscell., pl. 143 and 166.' Then
comes the following statement: M. Temminck has
adopted, after Shaw, the genus Apteryx, which he thus
describes.' M. Lesson, after giving the description and
Shaw, as appears indeed from Cuvier's note, made men- noticing the only known species, Apteryx Australis, pro-
tion of the Dodo in his Naturalist's Miscellany (plates 142 ceeds to make the following queries: May not the Dronte
and 143), giving a figure of the head preserved in the Ash-be the Cassowary of the East Indies, to which has been
molean Museum, and in his Zoological Lectures. The con-
tinuer of his 'Zoology' has the following sweeping notice of
the bird:-The Dudo of Edwards appears to have existed
only in the imagination of that artist, or the species has
been utterly extirpated since his time, which is scarcely
Its beak is said to be deposited in the Ashmo-
lean Museum at Oxford, and a foot in the collection in the
British Museum. The former appears rather to belong to
some unknown species of albatross than to a bird of this
order, and the latter to another unknown bird; but upon

probable.

added the bill of an Albatross? It is said that it was once
very common in the Islands of France and of Bourbon, and
that the former received the name of the Isle of Cerne from
these birds. May not the Apteryx of M. Temminck be
founded on the fragments of the Dronte preserved in the
Museum of London? To make the confusion complete,
M. Lesson places immediately before the genus Dronte
the Emou Kivikivi, Dromiceius Nova Zelandia, Less.
which is no other than the Apteryx Australis of Shaw, and
which has been so well described and figured by Mr.

and depressed at the base*,' on an Emeu-like body with rasorial legs and feet? Yet such is the form of Apteryx. As to the argument arising from the absence of the spur it is worth but little at best; and it may be said in favour of those who would place the Dodo between the Struthious and Gallinaceous birds, that its absence in such an osculant bird would be expected.

If the picture in the British Museum, and the cut in Bontius be faithful representations of a creature then living, to make such a bird a bird of prey--a Vulture, in the ordinary acceptation of the term-would be to set all the usual laws of adaptation at defiance. A Vulture without wings! How was it to be fed? And not only without wings, but neces sarily slow and heavy in progression on its clumsy feet The Vulturida are, as we know, among the most active agents for removing the rapidly decomposing animal remains in tropical and intertropical climates, and they are provided with a prodigal development of wing to waft them speedily to the spot tainted by the corrupt incumbrance. But no such powers of wing would be required by a bird appointed to clear away the decaying and decomposing masses of a luxuriant tropical vegetation,-a kind of Vulture for vegetable impurities, so to speak,-and such an office would not be by any means inconsistent with comparative slow

remarkable bird represented one of the primary divisions of
the whole order; in which case it would stand between the
owls and the Dodo: but its similarity to the vultures and
the falcons, in our opinion, is too great to favour this sup-
position; while, on the other hand, it will subsequently ap-
pear that the circle of the Falconida is sufficiently complete
to show that it does not enter into that family.' After
some other observations, Mr. Swainson concludes his ob-
servations on the Secretary thus: 'It must be remembered,
also, that the very same objections occur against placing
this bird (the Secretary) between the Strigida (owls) and
the Didide (Dodos), as those we have intimated against
considering it as the grallatorial type of the Vulturida.'
That a bird or birds called by the name of Dodo and the
other appellations which we need not here repeat once
existed, we think the evidence above given sufficiently
proves. We have, indeed, heard doubts expressed whether
the Museum portrait was taken from a living bird,' and
have also heard it suggested that the picture may represent
a specimen made up of the body of an ostrich to which the
bill and legs of other birds have been attached. And here
it is that the destruction of Tradescant's specimen becomes
a source of the greatest regret. Whatever was the con-
dition of that specimen, as long as the skin was preserved
there existed the means of ascertaining whether it was realness of pedestrian motion.
or a made-up monster; and when the Vice-Chancellor and
the other curators in making their lustration gave the fatal
nod of approbation they destroyed that evidence. With
regard to the picture we have endeavoured to place it before
the reader as well as our limited means will permit, in order
that he may have an opportunity of judging from the in-
ternal evidence as to the probability of the portrait being
taken from a living bird, and with this view we have given
the accessories as they appear in the painting as well as the
principal figure.

Mr. Gray, among others, still inclines, we believe, to the
opinion that the bird represented was made up by joining
the head of a bird of prey approaching the Vultures, if not
belonging to that family, to the legs of a Gallinaceous bird,
and his opinion, from his attainments and experience, is
worthy of all respect. But, if this be granted, see what we
have to deal with. We have then two species, which are
either extinct or have escaped the researches of all zoolo-
gists to account for, one, a bird of prey, to judge from its
bill, larger than the Condor; the other a Gallinaceous bird,
whose pillar-like legs must have supported an enormous
body. As to the stories of the disgusting quality of the
flesh of the bird found and eaten by the Dutch, that will
weigh but little in the scale when we take the expression
to be, what it really was, indicative of a comparative prefer-
ence for the turtle-doves there found, after feeding on
Dodos usque ad nauseam. Always Partridges' has be-
come almost proverbial, and we find from Lawson how a
repetition of the most delicious food palls. We cooked
our supper,' says that traveller, but having neither bread
nor salt, our fat turkeys began to be loathsome to us,
although we were never wanting of a good appetite, yet
a continuance of one diet made us weary;' and again,
By the way our guide killed more turkeys, and two pol-
cats, which he eat, esteeming them before fat turkeys.'

With regard to the form of the bill, we must be careful how we lay too much stress on that. Who would have expected to find a bill long, slender, smooth, and polished, in form resembling that of an Ibis, but rather more straight

DODO'NA, the most antient oracle of Greece, was probably situated in the valley of Joannina in Epirus, but its exact position has never been ascertained. Dionysius of Halicarnassus places it four days' journey from Buthrotum, and two from Ambracia. (Antiqu. Rom. i. 5.) Colonel Leake places it at the south-east extremity of the lake of Joannina, near Kastritza (Travels in Northern Greece, vol. iv., p. 168, and following), and there are many reasons for believing that the Dodonæan territory corresponded to the valley at the south of that sheet of water. It is true that there is no mention of a lake in the neighbourhood of the antient Dodona; but it is described as surrounded by marshes, and it is not unlikely that the lake of Joannina may have been increased in later times from the catavothra in the country. (Leake, iv. p. 189.) The temple at Dodona was dedicated to Jupiter, and was of Pelasgian origin. (Hom. Iliad, xvi. 233; Herod. ii. 52.) Strabo is of opinion (vii. p. 328), that the priests at this temple were originally men, but that the duties of the office were afterwards performned by three old women. The people who had the management of the temple are called Selli or Helli. (Creuzer, Symbol. i., p. 193, note 359.) The oracles were delivered from an oak (Sophocles, Trachin. 1171) or beech (Hesiod. ap. Strabon., p. 327; Sophocl. Trach. 173). The temple at Dodona was entirely destroyed by Dosimachus, the Etolian prætor, B.C. 219 (Polyb. iv. 67), and probably was never restored, for it did not exist in the time of Strabo (p. 327); but there was a town of the name in the seventh century A.D., and a bishop of Dodona is mentioned in the council of Ephesus. (Wesseling on Hierocles' Synecdochæ, p. 651.)

There is a long article on Dodona in the Fragment of Stephanus Byzantinus, which is printed at the end of his work.

DODSLEY, ROBERT, was born in 1703, at Mansfield, in Nottinghamshire, where his father is said to have kept the free school. Robert and several brothers, however, appear to have all commenced life as working artisans, or servants. Robert is said to have been put apprentice to a stocking-weaver, from whom, finding himself in danger of being starved, he ran away, and took the place of a footman. After living in that capacity with one or two persons, he entered the service of the Honourable Mrs. Lowther, and while with that lady he published by subscription in 1732 an octavo volume of poetical pieces, under the title of 'The Muse in Livery, or the Footman's Miscellany.' The situation of the author naturally drew considerable attention to this work at the moment of its appearance; but the poetry was of no remarkable merit. His next production was a 3. In Edwards's picture the bill is represented as much hooked (like the dramatic piece, called 'The Toyshop;' he sent it in manuRaptores) at the tip: a character which unfortunately cannot be verified on script to Pope, by whom it was much relished, and whorehead, that specimen in destitute of the horny sheath of the bill, ended it to Rich, the manager of Covent Gaith With regard to the size of the bill, it is to be observed, that this part varies theatre, where it was acted in 1735 with great success. With reason to believe that the bird of the Oxford head was much larger than some the profits of his play Dodsley the same year set up as a book

Mr. Gray's reasons for considering the Dodo as belonging to the Raptores
chiefly rest on the following facts, premising, as he does, that it is to be borue
in mind that in the Raptorial birds the form of the bill is their chief ordinal
character, which is not the case with the Grallatores or the Natatores, where
the form of the feet and legs are the chief character of the order.
1. The base of the bill is enveloped in a Cere, as may be seen in the cast
where the folds of the Cere are distinctly exhibited, especially over the back
of the nostrils. The Cere is only found in the Raptorial birds.
2. The nostrils are placed exactly in front of the Cere, as they are in the
other Raptores: they are oval, and nearly erect, as they are in the true Vul
tures, and in that genus alone, and not longitudinal as they are in the Ca-
thar'es, all the Gallinaceous birds, Grallatores and Natatores, and they are
naked and covered with an arched scale, as is the case in all the Gallinacea.

and only shows the form of the bony core.

greatly in the different species of vultures, indeed so much so, that there is no

of the known vultures.

With regard to the foot,' adds Mr. Gray, it has all the characters of that and his own reputation and talents procured him, his shop
seller; and, under the patronage which Pope's friendship

of the Gallinaceous birds, and differs from all the vultures in the shortness of

the middle toe, the form of the scales on the leg, and the bluntness of the
claws'

• Yarrell's' Description of Apteryx Australis,' Trans. Zool. Soc., vol. i

**** unished by Charles Knight, 22, Ludgate-street.—Printed by William was aud Bont, Pramfærd-street

·

the son of Matthew Dodsworth, registrar of York Cathedral, and chancellor to Archbishop Matthews. He was born July 24, 1585, at Newton Grange in the parish of St. Oswald, in Rydale, Yorkshire. He died in the month of August, 1654, and was buried at Rufford in Lancashire. His manuscript collections, partly relating to Yorkshire, in a hundred and sixty-two volumes folio and quarto, a hundred and twenty-two of them in his own hand-writing, were bequeathed to the Bodleian Library at Oxford, in 1671, by General Fairfax, who had been Dodsworth's patron. Chalmers says that Fairfax allowed Dodsworth a yearly salary to preserve the inscriptions in churches.

There is a detailed catalogue of the contents of Dodsworth's collections, now in the Bodleian, in the great catalogue of the Manuscripts of England and Ireland, fol. Oxon. 1697. (Gough's Brit. Top. vol. i. pp. 123-4; Chalmers's Biogr. Dict. vol. xii., p. 180; and the pref. to the last edition of the Monasticon.)

in Pall Mall soon became a distinguished resort of the literary loungers about town. His business, which he conducted with great spirit and ability, prospered accordingly; and in his latter days he might be considered as standing at the head of the bookselling trade. He continued also throughout his life to keep himself before the public in his first profession of an author, and produced a considerable number of works of varying degrees of merit, both in prose and verse. In 1737 his farce of The King and the Miller of Mansfield' was acted at Drury Lane with great applause. It was followed the same year by a sequel, under the title of Sir John Cockle at Court,' which however was not so successful. Nor was he more fortunate with his ballad Dodsworth was the projector, and collected many of the farce of The Blind Beggar of Bethnall Green,' which was materials for the early part of the work now known as 'Dugbrought out at Drury Lane in 1741. This year also he set dale's Monasticon,' in the title page of the first volume of up a weekly magazine, under the title of The Public Re-which his name appears as one of the compilers. gister,' to which he was himself a principal contributor; but it was discontinued after the publication of the twentyfourth number. It is curious to note that, in his farewell address to his readers, he complains that certain rival magazine publishers (understood to mean the proprietors of the Gentleman's Magazine) had exerted their influence with success to prevent the newspapers from advertising his DODWELL, HENRY, was born in Dublin in 1642. work. In 1745 he published another short dramatic piece, His father, who had been in the army, possessed some proentitled 'Rex et Pontifex, being an attempt to introduce perty in Ireland, but having lost it in the rebellion, he upon the stage a new species of pantomime; but this never brought over his family to England, and settled at York, in was acted. A collected edition of all these dramas was 1648. Young Dodwell was here sent to the free school, published in 1748, in a volume, to which he gave the title of where he remained for five years. In the meantime both 'Trifles.' his father and mother had died, and he was reduced for a The following year he produced a masque on the sub-season to great difficulties and distress from the want of all ject of the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, under the title of pecuniary means, till, in 1654, he was taken under the proThe Triumphs of Peace,' which was set to music by Dr. tection of a brother of his mother's, at whose expense he Arne, and performed at Drury Lane. In 1750 appeared was sent, in 1656, to Trinity College, Dublin. Here he anonymously his ingenious and well known little work, eventually obtained a fellowship, which however he relinThe Economy of Human Life,' which was long attributed quished in 1666, owing to certain conscientious scruples to Lord Chesterfield, and was from the first extremely against taking holy orders. In 1672, on his return to Irepopular. The first part, entitled 'Agriculture,' of a poem land, after having resided some years at Oxford, he made his in blank verse, on the subject of public virtue, which he first appearance as an author by a learned preface, with published in 1754, was so coldly received that the second which he introduced to the public a theological tract of the and third parts which he originally contemplated were late Dr. Stearn, who had been his college tutor: it was never produced. In 1758 he closed his career of dramatic entitled 'De Obstinatione,' and published at Dublin. Dodauthorship with a tragedy entitled 'Cleone,' which was well's next publication was a volume entitled Two Letters of acted at Covent Garden with extraordinary applause, and Advice: 1. For the Susception of Holy Orders: 2. For drew crowded audiences during a long run. When it was Studies Theological, especially such as are rational.' It appublished, 2000 copies were sold the first day, and it peared in a second edition in 1681, accompanied with a reached a fourth edition within the year. Cleone,' how- Discourse on the Phoenician History of Sanchoniathon,' ever, is now nearly forgotten; although Dr. Johnson de- the fragments of which, found in Porphyry and Eusebius, clared that if Otway had written it he would have been he contends to be spurious. Meanwhile, in 1674, Dodwell remembered for nothing else,-a compliment which the had settled in London, and from this time to his death he modest author, when it was reported to him, observed with led a life of busy authorship. Many of his publications were some displeasure was 'too much. Dodsley died at Dur- on the popish and nonconformist controversies; they have ham, while on a visit to a friend, on the 25th of September, the reputation of showing, like everything else he wrote, 1764. He had retired from business some years before, extensive and minute learning, and great skill in the applihaving made a good fortune. Dodsley's name is associated cation of his scholarship, but little judgment of a larger kind. with several works of which he was only the projector and Few, if any, of the champions of the church of England the publisher, but from his connexion with which he is now have strained the pretensions of that establishment so far as more generally remembered than for his own productions. Dodwell seems to have done; but his whole life attested the Among them may be mentioned the two periodical works, perfect conscientiousness and disregard of personal conse'The Museum,' begun in 1746 and extended to three vo- quences under which he wrote and acted. In 1688 he was lumes, in which there are many able essays by Horace elected Camden Professor of History by the University of Walpole, the two Wartons, Akenside, &c. (of this Dodsley Oxford, but was deprived of his office, after he had held it was only one of the shareholders), and The World,' about three years, for refusing to take the oath of allegiance 1754-57, conducted by Edward Moore, and contributed to to William and Mary. He now retired to the village of by Lords Lyttelton, Chesterfield, Bath, and Cork, Horace Cookham in Berkshire, and soon after to Shottesbrooke in Walpole, Soame Jenyns, &c.; "The Preceptor,' 2 vols., the same neighbourhood, where he spent the rest of his days. 1748, to which Johnson wrote a preface; and especially the He possessed, it appears, an estate in Ireland, but he Annual Register,' begun in 1758, and still carried on and allowed a relation to enjoy the principal part of the rent, known by his name. [ANNUAL REGISTER] These and the only reserving such a moderate maintenance for himself as other works in which he was engaged brought him into sufficed for his simple and unexpensive habits of life. It is intimate connexion with most of the eminent men belong- said however that his relation at length began to grumble at ing to the world of letters during the period of his able and the subtraction even of this pittance; and on that Dodwell honourable career. He has also the credit of having first resumed his property, and married. He took this step in encouraged the talents of Dr. Johnson, by purchasing his 1694, in his 53rd year, and he lived to see himself the fapoem of London in 1738, for the sum of ten guineas, and ther of ten children. The works for which he is now chiefly of having many years afterwards been the projector of the remembered were also all produced in the latter part of his English Dictionary. A second volume of Dodsley's col- life. Among these are his Dissertations and Annotations on lected works, forming a continuation of the Trifles,' was the Greek Geographers, published in Hudson's Geograpublished under the title of Miscellanies, in 1772. (Be- phim Veteris Scriptores Græci Minores,' Oxon. 1698, 1703, sides the articles in the second edition of the 'Biographia and 1712; his 'Annales Thucydidei et Xenophontei,' 1696; Britannica,' in Chalmers, and in the Biographia Dramatica,' his Chronologia Græco-Romana pro Hypothesibus Dion. there are many notices respecting Dodsley in Nichols's Halicarnassei, 1692; and his Annales Velleiani, Quin'Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century.') tiliani, Statiani,' 1698. These several chronological essays, DODSWORTH, ROGER, an eminent antiquary, was which are drawn up with great ability, have all been