was weak as an etymologist, but his positive statement, corroborated as it is by Altham, cannot be set aside, and hence we do not hesitate to assign a Portuguese derivation
for the word.[1] Herbert also gave a figure of the bird.Proceeding chronologically we next come upon a curious bit of evidence. This is contained in a MS. diary kept between 1626 and 1640 by Thomas Crossfield of Queen s College, Oxford, where, under the year 1634, mention is casually made of one Mr Gosling " who bestowed the Dodar (a blacke Indian bird) vpon ye Anatomy school." Nothing more is known of it. About 1638, Sir Hamon Lestrange tells us, as he walked London streets he saw the picture of a strange fowl hung out on a cloth canvas, and going in to see it found a great bird kept in a chamber " somewhat bigger than the largest Turky cock, and so legged and footed, but shorter and thicker." The keeper called it a Dodo and shewed the visitors how his captive would swallow " large peble stones as bigge as nutmegs."
In 1651 Morisot published an account of a voyage made by Francois Gauche, who professed to have passed fifteen days in Mauritius, or " 1 rsle de Saincte Apollonie," as he called it, in 1638. According to De Flacourtthe narrative is not very trustworthy, and indeed certain statements are obviously inaccurate. Gauche says he saw there birds bigger than Swans, which he describes so as to leave no doubt of his meaning Dodos ; but perhaps the most import ant facts (if they be facts) that he relates are that they had a cry like a Gosling (" il a un cry comme 1 oison "), and that they laid a single white egg, " gros comme un pain d un sol," on a mass of grass in the forests. He calls them " oiseaux de Nazaret," perhaps, as a marginal note informs us, from an island of that name which was then supposed to lie more to the northward, but is now known to have no existence.
In the catalogue of Tradescant s Collection of Rarities, preserved at South Lambeth, published in 1656, we have entered among the " Whole Birds " a " Dodar from the island Mauritius ; it is notable to flic being so big." This specimen may well have been the skin of the bird seen by Lestrange some eighteen years before, but anyhow we are able to trace the specimen through Willughby, Lhwyd, and Hyde, till it passed in or before 1684 to the Ashmolean collection at Oxford. In 1755 it was ordered to be destroyed, but, in accordance with the original orders of Ashmole, its head and right foot were preserved, and still ornament the Museum of that LT n iversity. In the second edition of a Catalogue of many Natural Rarities, &c., to be seen at tLe place formerly called the Music House, near the West End of St Paul s Church, collected by one Hubert alias Forbes, and published in 1665, mention is made of a " legge of a Dodo, a great heavy bird that cannot fly ; it is a Bird of the Mauricius Island." This is supposed to have subsequently passed into the possession of the Royal Society. At all events such a specimen is included in Grew s list of their treasures which was published in 1681. This was afterwards transferred to the British Museum, where it still reposes. As may be seen it is a left foot, without the integuments, but it differs sufficiently in size from the Oxford specimen to forbid its having been part of the same individual. In 1666 Olearius brought out tlie Gottorffisches Kunst Rammer, wherein he describes the head of a Walyhvoyel, which some sixty years later was removed to the Museum at Copenhagen, and is now preserved there, having been the means of first leading zoologists, under the guidance of Prof, Reinhardt, to recognize the true affinities of the bird.
Little more remains to be told. For brevity s sake we have passed over all but the principal narratives of voyagera or other notices of the bird. A compendious bibliography, up to the year 1848, will be found in Strickland s classical work,[2] and the list was continued by Von Frauenfeld[3] for twenty years later. The last evidence we have of the Dodo s existence is furnished by a journal kept by Benj. Harry, and now in the British Museum (MSX. Addit. 3668. 11. D). This shows its survival till 1681, but the writer s sole remark upon it is that its " fflesh is very hard." The successive occupation of the island by different masters seems to have destroyed every tradition relating to the bird, and doubts began to arise whether such a creature had ever existed. Duncan, in 1828, shewed how ill-founded these doubts were, and some ten years latet Broderip with much diligence collected all the available evi dence into an admirable essay, which in its turn was suc ceeded by Strickland s monograph just mentioned. But in the meanwhile little was done towards obtaining any material advance in our knowledge, Prof. Reiuhardt s determination of its affinity to the Pigeons (Columbcv) excepted ; and it was hardly until Clark s discovery in 18G5 (Birds, vol. iii. p. 732) of a large number of Dodos remains, that zoologists generally were prepared to accept that affinity without question. The examination of bone after bone by Prof. Owen and others confirmed the judgment of the Danish naturalist, and there is now no possibility of any different view being successfully maintained.
The causes which led to the extirpation of this ponder ous Pigeon have been discussed in a former article, and nothing new can be added on that branch of the subject ; but it will be remembered that the Dodo does not stand alone in its fate, and that two more or less nearly allied birds inhabiting the sister islands of Reunion and Rodriguez have in like manner disappeared from the face of the earth.
and venerable of all Hellenic sanctuaries. In the plain of the Dodonjea, and on the banks of the neighbouring Acheloiis, there dwelt in times long anterior to history the race of Helli or Hellenes, who thence spread into Thessaly and Greece. In after times the Greeks of the south looked on the inhabitants of Epirus as barbarians ; nevertheless for Dodona they always preserved a certain reverence, and the temple there was the object of frequent missions from them. This temple was dedicated to the Pelasgic Zeus, the wielder of the thunderbolt in the storms so frequent in Epirus. Connected with the temple was an oracle which enjoyed more reputation in Greece than any other save that at Delphi, and which would seem to date from more early times than the worship of Zeus ; for the normal method of gathering the responses of the oracle was by listening to the rustling of an old oak tree, which wab supposed to be the seat of the deity, and by taking thence an augury of the future. We seem here to have a remnant of the very ancient and widely diffused tree-worship. Sometimes, however, auguries were taken in other manners, being drawn from the moaning of doves in the branches, the murmur of a fountain which rose close by, or the resounding of the wind in the brazen tripods which formed a circle all round the temple. The oracle was thus, compared with the articulate responses of Delphi, dumb,
but none the less constantly consulted. Croesus proposed
- ↑ Hence we venture to dispute Prof. Schlegel s supposed origin of "Dodo." The Portuguese must have been the prior nomenclators, and if, as is most likely, some of their nation, or men acquainted with their language, were employed to pilot the Hollanders, we see at once how the first Dutch name Walghvogel would give way. The mean ing of Dmtdo notbeirg plain to the Dutch, they would, as is the habit of sailors, convert it into something they did understand. Then Dodaers would easily suggest itself.
- ↑ The Dodo and its Kindred, &c. By H. E. Strickland and A. G. Melville. London : 1848. 4to.
- ↑ Neu aufgcfundcne Abbildung dcs Dronte, u. s. w. Erlautert von Georg Ritter von Frauenfeld. Wien 1868. fol.
