Epigraph
ON
THE DODO
(Didus ineptus, Linn.).
§ 1 Historical Introduction
The Dodo has long been one of the “Curiosities of Natural History,” through the singularity of its recorded shape, and the paucity of the material evidences of the bird. The head and foot in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and the foot in the British Museum, were all the parts of the bird known to the author of the admirable article “Dodo” at the date of its publication in the ‘Penny Cyclopædia’1.
The history of the bird to that date is so conscientiously and exhaustively worked out by my lamented friend, that, instead of paraphrasing or amplifying it, I here give it in Mr. Broderip’s own words.
“Written and Pictorial Evidence.—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-vogels 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 (fig. 1), in a small engraving, one of six which form the prefixed plate.
“In the frontispiece to De Bry (Quinta Pars Indiæ Orientalis, &c., M.DCI.), surmounting the architectural design of the titlepage, 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 (fig. 2) is taken from the figure on the left hand.
Tortoise and Walgh-vogel, of the Mauritius (Van Neck and Wybrand, 1598). From plate 2 of Van Neck’s Voyage.
Dodo
(De Bry, 1601).
“In De Bry’s ‘Descriptio Insulæ Do Cerne a nobis Mauritius dictæ’ 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 cooked the more unfit for food they became (quod quo longius seu diutius elixarentur, plus lentescerent et esui ineptiores fierent). Their bellies and breasts were nevertheless of a pleasant flavour (saporis jucundi) and easy of mastication. Another cause for the appellation we gave them was the preferable abundance of Turtle-doves which were of a far sweeter and more grateful flavour.’ It will be observed that the bill in De Bry’s figure is comparatively small.
“Clusius, in his ‘Exotica’ (1605), gives a figure, here copied” (note 1, p. 4), “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: beside, 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 back side 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 yellowish2 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.
“In the voyage of Jacob Heemskerk and Wolfert Harmanz to the East Indies, in 1601, 1602, 1603 (small 4to, Amsterdam, 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 many wonderful and perilous things that happened to him’—from 1618 to 1625 (small 4to, Utrecht, 1649)—under the head of the ‘Island of Mauritius or Maskarinas,’ mention is made (page 6) of the Dod-eersen, which had small wings, but could not fly, and were so fat that they scarcely could go.
“Herbert, in his Travels (1634), gives a figure or rather figures of a bird that he calls ‘Dodo,’ and the following account:—‘The Dodo comes first to our description, here, and in Dygarrois (and no where else, that ever I could see or heare of, is generated the Dodo). (A Portuguize name it is, and has reference to her simplenes), a bird which for shape and rarenesse might be called a Phœnix (wer’t in Arabia); her body is round and extreame fat, her slow pace begets that corpulencie; few of them weigh lesse than fifty pound: better to the eye than the stomack: greasie appetites may perhaps commend them, but to the indifferently curious nourishment, but prove offensive. Let’s take her picture: her visage darts forth melancholy, as sensible of nature’s injurie in framing so great and massie a body to be directed by such small and complementall wings, as are unable to hoise her from the ground, serving only to prove her a bird; which otherwise might be doubted of: her head is variously drest, the one halfe hooded with downy blackish feathers; the other perfectly naked; of a whitish hue, as if a transparent lawne had covered it: her bill is very howked and bends downwards, the thrill or breathing place is in the midst of it; from which part to the end, the colour is a light greene mixt with a pale yellow; her eyes be round and small, and bright as diamonds; her cloathing is of finest downe, such as you see in goslins; her trayne is (like a China beard) of three or foure short feathers; her legs thick, and black, and strong; her tallons or pounces sharp; her stomack fiery hot, so as stones and iron are easily digested in it; in that and shape, not a little resembling the Africk oestriches: but so much, as for their more certain difference I dare to give thee (with two others) her representation.’ (4th ed. 16773.)
“Nieremberg’s description (1655) may be considered a copy of that of Clusius, and indeed his whole work is a mere compilation. As we have seen above, he names the bird Cygnus cucullatus.
“In Tradescant’s catalogue (‘Musæum Tradescantianum; or, a Collection of Rarities preserved at South Lambeth, near London, by John Tradescant,’ London, 1656, 12mo), we find among the ‘Whole Birds’—‘Dodar, from the island Mauritius; it is not able to flie being so big.’ That this was a Dodo there can be no doubt; for we have the testimony of an eye-witness, whose ornithological competency cannot be doubted, in the affirmative. Willughby at the end of his section on ‘The Dodo,’ and immediately beneath his translation of Bontius, has the following words: ‘We have seen this bird dried, or its skin stuft in Tradescant’s cabinet.’ We shall, hereafter, trace this specimen to Oxford.
“Jonston (1657) repeats the figure of Clusius, and refers to his description and that of Herbert.
“Bontius, edited by Piso (1658), writes as follows: ‘De Dronte aliis Dod-aers.’ After stating that among the islands of the East Indies is that which is called Cerne by some, but Mauritius ‘a nostratibus,’ especially celebrated for its ebony, and that in the said island a bird ‘miræ conformationis’ called Dronte abounds, he proceeds to tell us—we take Willughby’s translation—that it is ‘for bigness of mean size between an ostrich and a turkey, from which it partly differs in shape, and partly agrees with them, especially with the African ostriches, if you consider the rump, quills, and feathers: so that it was like a pigmy among them, if you regard the shortness of its legs. It hath a great, ill-favoured head, covered with a kind of membrane resembling a hood; great black eyes; a bending, prominent, fat neck; an extraordinary long, strong, bluish-white bill, only the ends of each mandible are of a different colour, that of the upper black, that of the nether yellowish, both sharp-pointed and crooked. It gapes huge wide as being naturally very voracious. Its body is fat, round, covered with soft grey feathers, after the manner of an ostriches: in each side, instead of hard wing-feathers or quills, it is furnished with small, soft-feathered wings, of a yellowish ash-colour; and behind, the rump, instead of a tail, is adorned with five small curled feathers of the same colour. It hath yellow legs, thick, but very short; four toes in each foot, solid, long, as it were scaly, armed with strong, black claws. 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 seamens’ bellies. If they be old, or not well boiled, they are of difficult concoction, 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; as though by this mark also nature would manifest that these fowl are of the ostrich kind, in that they swallow any hard things, though they do not digest them.’
“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. 13. f. 5) is very like that of Clusius. It is mentioned as the head of the Walch-Vogel, 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 outline4.
“Grew (‘Musæum 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 Nierembergius; 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 bigness 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 shortness, 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 describe 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 comparison; indeed, though he does not refer to it, there is no reason for supposing that Grew was not familiar with Tradescant’s specimen.
“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.
“We now proceed to trace the specimen which was in the Musæum 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 ‘Musæum,’ 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 the Museum at Oxford. There, according to Mr. Duncan, it was destroyed in 1755 by order of the visitors, and he thus gives the evidence of its destruction:—
“‘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 Musæo 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.’ (Duncan, “On the Dodo,” Zool. Journ. vol. iii. p. 559.)
“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 readers5.
“It has been stated that the painting came into the possession of Sir Hans Sloane, president of the Royal Society, and that it was bought at his sale by Edwards, who, after publishing 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 described 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 property I deposited it in the British Museum as a great curiosity. 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 ‘History 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 sauvage) of Madagascar, have never been seen in the isles of France, Bourbon, Rodriguez, or even the Seychelles lately discovered, during more than sixty years since when these places have been inhabited and visited by French colonists. The oldest inhabitants assure every one that these monstrous 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 proceeds: ‘However this may be, it is certain that for nearly an age (depuis près un siècle) no one has here seen an animal of this species. But it is very probable that before the islands were inhabited, people might have been able to find 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 bird ‘Oiseau de 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 neighbourhood 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 resembling 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. Telfair, Esq., of Port Louis, in the Mauritius, a naturalist of great research, for any information he could furnish or procure relating to the former existence of the Dodo in that island, I obtained only the following partly negative statement:—
“‘That there is a very general impression among the inhabitants 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, although 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 subject which he had addressed to a gentleman resident on that island, yet he stated that he had not any great expectations 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.’
“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.
“In the ‘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 ‘Estridge’ (Ostrich).
“‘About 1638, as I walked London streets I saw the picture of a strange fowl hong out upon a cloth canvas 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 big 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 agayne6.’
“Evidence arising from Remains.—The only existing recent remains attributed to the Dodo are, a leg (fig. 4) in the British Museum, and a head (fig. 3) (a cast of which is in the British Museum), and a leg in the Ashmolean Museum at 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, doubtful, though we think with Mr. Gray that they are probably identical; but that the specimen in the British Museum did not belong to Tradescant’s specimen is clear, for it existed in the collection belonging to the Royal Society when Tradescant’s ‘Dodar’ was complete.
“In the ‘Annales des Sciences’ (tome xxi. p. 103, Sept 1830) will be found an account of an assemblage of fossil bones, then recently discovered, under a bed of lava, in the Isle of France, and sent to the Paris Museum. They almost all belonged to a large living species of land-tortoise, called Testudo indica, but amongst them were the head, sternum, and humerus of the Dodo. ‘M. Cuvier,’ adds Mr. Lyell in his ‘Principles of Geology,’ ‘showed me these valuable remains at Paris, and assured me that they left no doubt in his mind that the huge bird was one of the gallinaceous tribe7.’”
The bones in question were obtained from a cavern in the Island of Rodriguez (Desjardins, Analyse des Travaux de la Soc. d’Hist. Nat. de l’Ile Maurice, 2de année), and belong to the Solitaire (Pezophaps), a large extinct brevipennate bird, allied to the Dodo. The other evidences from remains, cited by Broderip, also relate to the Solitaire.
Such was the history of the Dodo in 1837.
In the following year I visited Holland, chiefly with a view to ascertain whether there might possibly be any remnant of the bird preserved in the Natural History Museums of that country, and to collect for my friend whatever other evidence, material, written or pictorial, might have escaped his assiduous researches.
My visits to the museums at Leyden, Amsterdam, Utrecht, and the Hague, during which I received every requisite aid from the accomplished Professors and Curators, were productive of only negative results. The little other information I was able to obtain was communicated to Mr. Broderip, who incorporated it in the following “Supplement to his History.”
“Additional evidence relative to the Dodo. By W. J. Broderip, Esq., F.R.S.
“The interest which attaches to any communication relative to an extinct, and, at one time, a doubted species, must be my apology for offering the following addition to the evidences of the existence and habits of the Dodo.
“My old and valued friend Professor Owen presented me, on his return from Holland some time since, with a short thick volume, bearing on its titlepage (not without black letter) the following promise:—
“‘C. Plinii Secundi Des wijdt-vermaerden Natuurkondigers vijf Boecken.
Handelen van de Nature.
Van de Menschen.
Van de viervoetige en Kruypende Dieren.
Van de Vogelen.
Van de Kleyne Beestjes of Ongedierten.
Van de Visschen, Oesters, Kreeften, &c.
“‘Hier zijn by-gevoeght de Schriften van verscheyden andere oude Authueren de Natuur der Dieren aengaende. En nu in desen laetsen Druck wel het vierde part vermeerdert, uyt verscheyden nieuwe Schrijvers en eygen oudervindinge: en met veel Kopere Platen verziert t’Amsterdam, By Abraham Wolfgangh, 1662.’
“The frontispiece presents the artist’s notion of the Garden of Eden, with a very Dutch Adam and Eve, the latter with the apple in her hand, while the serpent twined round the tree looks sly and satisfied. Our first parents are surrounded by beasts, and in the foreground is represented a piece of water with waterfowl and ‘ill-shaped fishes.’
“The superscription is ‘C. Plinius S. Van de Menschen, Beesten, Vogelen en Visschen.’
“Mr. Strickland, in his elaborate work on ‘The Dodo and its Kindred8,’ in which he has done me the honour to adopt the arrangement and the information collected in my article ‘Dodo,’ in the ‘Penny Cyclopædia9,’ gives some addenda in his postscript to Part I. of his and Dr. Melville’s book. ‘The first of these,’ writes Mr. Strickland, ’is a rare edition of Bontekoe’s Voyage, kindly communicated to me by Dr. Bandinel, the Bodleian Librarian, entitled “Journael van de acht-jarige avontuerlijcke Reyse van Willem Ysbrantsz Bontekoe van Hoorn, gedaen nae Oost-Indien,” published in quarto at Amsterdam, by Gillis Joosten Zaagman. There is no date; but from a narrative introduced at the end, it must be subsequent (probably by a year or two) to 1646. The narrative is nearly a verbatim version of the other Dutch editions of Bontekoe; and the only variation of text which concerns us, is in the statement that the underside of the Dodo dragged along the ground, which is here qualified thus:—“sleepte haer de neers by na (i. e. almost) langs de Aerde.” But what gives a peculiar interest to this volume is, that it contains (alone of all the editions of Bontekoe which I have seen) a figure of the Dodo, which I here present.’ Then follows the cut.
“‘This highly ludicrous representation,’ continues Mr. Strickland, ’is more like a fighting cock than a Dodo; and the black letter of the Dutch text omits to tell us whether this design was due to the pencil of Bontekoe or his publisher Zaagman, or whether it was copied from some contemporary painting now forgotten. But there can be no doubt that this figure refers to the true Dodo of Mauritius, and not to the “Solitaire” of Bourbon, with which Bontekoe confounded it.
“‘We may regret that the rudeness of the original woodcut leaves us in the dark as to the nature of the object on which the Dodo appears about to feed. This figure would pass equally well for a testaceous mollusk, or for an arboreal fruit; so that the problem of the Dodo’s food seems as far from a solution as ever.’
“In Wolfgangh’s publication, p. 480, is the following description:—
“‘Op’t Eylandt Mauritius in Oost-Indien, als mede op sommige andere plaetsen gelijck mede in West-Indien, vindt men voegels soo groot als Swanen, die men Dodaersen of Dronten noemt, sy hebben groote hoofden, en daer op een velleken in manier van een Kapken, sy hebben geen vleugels, dan in plaetsvan dien, 3 of 4 swarte pennekens, en daer haer staert behoorde te staen, daer Zijn 4 of 5 gekrulde Pluymkens, van graeuwachtige verwe. Sy hebben een dicke ronde Naers, daer uyt het schijnt, dat haer de naem van Dodaers toe gekomen is; in de maegh hebben sy gemeenlijck een Steen van een vuyst groot, dese is bruyn, graeuw van verwe, en vol gaetkens, en hollingheydt, doch soo hart als grauwe Bentemeer-steen. Het Boots-volck van Jacob van Neck, noemden se Walgh-vogels, om dat se die niet recht gaer of murrruw konden koken: of om datse soo veel Tortel-duyven konden bekomen, die leckerder smaeckten, datse van dese Dod-aersen de walgh kregen. Aen 3 of 4 van dese Vogels had al’t Scheeps volck van een Schip, voor een maeltijdt genoegh t’ eeten: Dese Dod-aersen hebbense oock ingesouten en op de reys mede genomen.’
“This description may be thus rendered:—
“‘In the Island of Mauritius in the East Indies, as also in sundry other places, likewise in the West Indies, men find birds as big as swans, which they call Dod-aerses or Drontes. They have large heads, upon the top of which is a skin (a little skin-membrane) in the shape of a cap (little cap). They have no wings, but in the place of them there are three or four black feathers; and there where the tail should be, there are instead four or five curling plumes of a greyish colour. They have a thick round rump, and from this it appears they got the name of Dod-aerses. In their stomachs they have commonly a stone as big as a fist; this stone is of a brown-grey colour, and full of little holes and hollows, but as hard as the grey Bentemer stone. The boat’s crew of Jacob van Neck called them Walgh-vogels (surfeit birds), because they could not cook them till they were done, or make them tender; or because they were able to get so many turtle-doves which had a much more pleasant flavour, so that they took a disgust to these birds. Likewise it is said that three or four of these birds are enough to afford a whole ship’s company one full meal. Indeed they salted down some of them, and carried them with them on the voyage.’
“At the top of the page in which this passage commences is printed ‘Van de Dodaersen.’ And immediately below it and above the description is a copper-plate of the bird, superscribed ‘Dod-aers,’ in engraved italics.
“The engraving of the bird is identical in position and accessories with the woodcut given by Mr. Strickland; but the sharpness of the work and the nature of the plate make the whole much clearer. The object at which the Dodo is looking, as if about to feed, is manifestly a testaceous mollusk with a turbinated shell, and between that and the raised foot of the bird is a half-buried spiny Echinus.
“The locality on which the Dodo is walking has the appearance of a strand which the tide has left dry.
“Wolfgangh’s account confirms the opinion which I hazarded in the article ‘Dodo’ in the ‘Penny Cyclopædia.’
“’As to the stories of the disgusting quality of the flesh of the bird found and eaten by the Dutch, they will weigh but little in the scale when we take the expression to be, what it really was, indicative of a comparative preference for the turtle-doves there found, after feeding on Dodos usque ad nauseam. “Always partridges” has become 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 polecats, which he eat, esteeming them before fat turkeys.”’
“It does not follow that because the Dodo is represented as looking at the frutti di mari, he is about to devour them. But if it be granted he is, the admission would not militate against the opinion of those who would place the Dodo between the Struthious and Gallinaceous birds. It is well known that the turkeys in America come down to the shore and feed upon the ‘fiddler’ crabs; and there would be nothing extraordinary in a quisquilious feeder, such as the Dodo probably was, varying its fruit and vegetable diet occasionally by resorting to such animal substances as it might find on the strand. Common poultry eagerly pick up insects and slugs in the fields, and, in the neighbourhood of tidal rivers and estuaries, may be seen availing themselves of the smaller mollusca and crustacea left by the retreating tide.
“In my article ‘Struthionidæ10’ under the section ‘Didus,’ is inserted the following extract from a letter written to me by Professor Owen:—
“‘Whilst at the Hague in the summer of 1848, I was much struck with the minuteness and accuracy with which the exotic species of animals had been painted by Savery and Breughel, in such subjects as Paradise, Orpheus charming the beasts, &c., in which scope was allowed for grouping together a great variety of animals. Understanding that the celebrated menagerie of Prince Maurice had afforded the living models to those artists, I sat down one day before Savery’s Orpheus and the beasts, to make a list of the species, which the picture evinced that the artist had had the opportunity to study alive. Judge of my surprise and pleasure in detecting in a dark corner of the picture (which is badly hung between two windows), the Dodo beautifully finished, showing for example, though but three inches long, the auricular circle of feathers, the scutation of the tarsi, and the loose structure of the caudal plumes. In the number and proportions of the toes and in general form, it accords with Edwards’s oil-painting in the British Museum; and I conclude that the miniature must have been copied from the study of a living bird, which, it is most probable, formed part of the Mauritian menagerie.’
“I little thought, when, with his permission, I published this graphic product of my kind friend’s pen, what was in store for me. Not long afterwards, a friend informed me that he had seen a picture at a dealer’s painted by one of the Saverys, and that he was pretty sure there was a Dodo in one corner of it. I sent for the picture, and there, sure enough, in the right-hand corner, and consequently to the left of the spectator, was the bird, in all the beauty of its ugliness. The Dodo stands on one foot with its back to the spectator, and turning round its head, which is represented with the huge bill picking the other uplifted foot. Like all the rest of the birds in this picture, which bears the name of Roland Savery, the Dodo is highly finished. The picture is now in my possession11.”
The figure 2 in Plate I. is a faithful copy of the bird as represented in it.
Whilst on a visit to Sion House I was unexpectedly gratified by finding, in a small oil-painting in the long gallery, an unequivocal and original representation of the Dodo, in an attitude different from that of any of the figures of the living bird by Roland Savery, and evidently by another master. I lost no time in communicating this additional evidence of the extinct bird to Mr. Broderip, and in obtaining the permission of my noble host to make such use of the painting as might best subserve the interests of Natural History. Mr. Broderip communicated to the Zoological Society the following:—
“Notice of an Original Painting, including a Figure of the Dodo, in the Collection of
His Grace the Duke of Northumberland, at Sion House.
“Professor Owen, at whose disposal the Duke of Northumberland placed the following additional pictorial evidence of the existence of the Dodo in the seventeenth century, has requested me to draw the attention of this Society to the highly interesting picture which the Duke has been so good as to send for the inspection of the Fellows. The size of the picture, which is in the finest preservation, is thirty-two inches by nineteen. It is executed in oil, and bears the following monogram and date. Mr. William Russell, with his usual discernment, detected in this monogram the signatures of Jean Goeimare and Jean David de Heem, and proved the correctness of his judgment by a reference to Brulliot12. Jean Goeimare, who is not noticed by Descamps, Bryan, Sandrart, or Houbraken, is described by Brulliot as a Flemish artist who flourished at the commencement of the seventeenth century, and painted landscapes with many animals, executed with great care, but in rather a dry manner13. Of De Heem, the celebrated painter of still life, it would be superfluous to say anything. We may conclude, then, that in this joint production the landscape and animals were painted by Goeimare, and the shells by De Heem.
“In this picture, which seems to have been intended as a record of rarities, the foreground represents a sea-shore from which the tide has retired, leaving empty shells of the following genera:—Nautilus, Pteroceras, Strombus, Triton, Pyrula, Cassis, Cypræa, Conus, Mitra, Turbo, Nerita, Mytilus, Ostrea, &c. Behind, on elevated ground, are two Ostriches; and below, to the right of the spectator, the Dodo is represented as in the act of picking up something from the strand” (fig. 5). “The head and body of the bird, covering an area as large as the palm of a man’s hand, are seen; but the legs are hidden. The painter of the Dodo, in my picture” (Pl. I. fig. 2), “has given the only complete foreshortened back view of the bird known to me. In the Duke’s picture the head and body are presented to the spectator on a larger scale; and I have nowhere seen the hood or ridge at the base of the bill, from which the bird obtained the name of Cygnus cucullatus, so clearly represented. Near the Dodo are a Smew and other aquatic birds, and further off Hoopoes and Terns. In the distance is the ocean, with a sea-monster awaiting the attack of Perseus, who descends on a winged steed to the rescue of Andromeda chained to a rock. Those who have had occasion to describe and figure new species of Testacea, know how difficult it is to find a draughtsman who can give a correct design of the shell to be represented. Unless the artist, like Mr. G. B. Sowerby, jun., is aware of the internal structure of the shell, and acquainted with its organization, a lamentable failure is generally the result. In the picture before us, with one exception—and even in that the specimen may have been distorted—so accurate was the eye of the painter, that if he had been aware of the organization of each shell—knowledge which he probably had not—he could not have represented the objects more correctly. The Nautili14, Strombus gigas, Triton, and Pyrula are painted with great breadth and power, and all are drawn and coloured with wonderful truth; indeed a conchologist may name every species. One of the Nautili is partially uncoated, to show the nacre, and the other dissected, to display the concamerations. None of the shells have the epidermis, and all are of the natural size. The artificial condition of these subjects, and especially of the Nautili, is, it must be allowed, rather out of place in an assemblage of testaceans left on the sands by the retired tide, unless we are to suppose that the sea-nymphs had been amusing themselves by polishing the specimens and displaying the internal structure of one of them; but this very treatment shows that the designs were accurately made from real objects then considered as rarities. With the exception of the Dodo, none of the natural objects represented are now rare. The shells, especially those whose habitats are the seas of the Antilles, are at present very common; but at the date of the picture—the second year of the reign of our first Charles—the natural productions of the West Indies were not well known, and were, comparatively, very scarce. With the shells on the shore is the cranium of a carnivorous quadruped, apparently of the family Canidæ. The monster-cetacean in the distance has evidently no chance with the avenger who is coming down upon him mounted on a winged steed. But Pegasus, who, with other prodigies, sprang from the blood that dropped from Medusa’s head, as the conqueror who had cut it off with his harpe traversed the air with his gory trophy, immediately winged its flight to Helicon, there to become the pet of the Muses. The best version of this mythological story relates, that when Perseus afterwards killed the sea-monster and delivered Andromeda on the coast of Ethiopia, he effected his purpose by raising himself in the air through the aid of the wings and talaria given to him by Mercury, and not with the help of the winged horse on which most of the painters mount him.
“Professor Owen informs me that Roland Savery’s picture containing the Dodo, in the Berlin collection, bears the date of 1626; and that the colour of the Dodo in the Duke of Northumberland’s picture resembles that of the portrait of the bird, of life size, by the same painter, now at Oxford. L’Estrange describes the hue of the back of the living Dodo which he saw exhibited in London ‘about 1638,’ as of ‘dunn or deare colour.’”
The picture of the Dodo at Berlin by R. Savery, to which Mr. Broderip refers, is copied in figure 1, Plate I. Another figure of the bird, by the same artist, is introduced into a painting in the Imperial Collection of the Belvedere at Vienna. Fig. 3, Plate I. of the present work, is from the copy of this picture, transmitted by Dr. Tschudi to Mr. Strickland, and given at p. 30 of the ‘Dodo and its Kindred.’ The date of the picture is 1628.
We have thus evidence of figures of the bird being introduced into paintings executed during the years 1626, 1627, and 1628. The different attitudes and life-like actions of the Dodo, in these representations, indicate that the artists had a living model before them. Their original studies may, indeed, have been executed at some period antecedent to the dates of the paintings into the subjects of which this rare and curious bird is introduced; but the capital fact remains, viz. that the figures given in Plate I. faithfully represent the shape, colour, and attitudes of the now extinct brevipennate bird of the Mauritius. Different conjectures have been propounded as to the time, place, and other circumstances under which Roelandt Savery and Jean Goeimare were enabled to execute their drawings or studies of the living Dodo, and I had the satisfaction to find that Mr. Strickland concurred in the conclusion at which I arrived after my researches in Holland into the history and evidences of the bird.
“As Roland Savery was born in 1576, he was twenty-three years old when Van Neck’s expedition returned to Holland, and as we are told by De Bry that the Dutch brought home a Dodo on that occasion, it is possible enough that Savery may have taken the portrait of this individual, and that the design thus made may have been copied by himself and by his nephew John in their later pictures. Or if we feel disposed to doubt the correctness of De Bry’s statement, we may yet suppose, with Professor Owen, that the menagerie of Prince Maurice supplied the living prototype for Savery’s pencil. This opinion is corroborated by the tradition recorded by Edwards, that the picture in the British Museum was drawn in Holland from the living bird. It is far more probable than the conjecture of Dr. Hamel (Bull. Ac. Petersb. vol. v. p. 317), that Savery’s pictures were copied from the Dodo exhibited in London, as this individual must in that case have lived in captivity at least twelve years, from 1626 to 163815.”
With the view to test the tradition recorded by Edwards as to the date and origin of the painting of the Dodo in the British Museum, I took a copy of the outline of the bird and laid upon it outlines of the bones of the Dodo subsequently to be described, as shown in Plate III., and thus obtained proof that the painting truly represented the natural size and shape of the Didus ineptus, and had no doubt been “drawn in Holland from the living bird16.” From the date of the first landing of the Dutch on the Island of Mauritius, in 1598, to their colonization of it in 1644, their ships frequently, perhaps annually, visited that island, and, as recorded by most of the writers quoted by Broderip, and testified by Van der Hagen, in 160717, their crews feasted on Tortoises, Dodos, Doves, and other game, and also salted the Tortoises and Dodos for consumption during the voyage to the spice-islands of the Indian Archipelago. It is highly probable that more than one of the strange birds of Prince Maurice’s Island would be brought alive to Holland, and we know that a specimen was brought from that country for exhibition in London in the year 1638. It is certain that through the attacks of man, and those of the dogs, cats, and swine introduced by the Dutch into the Mauritius, the slow and heavy flightless Dodos were extirpated, probably before Leguat’s visit to the island in 1693. The French colonists, who succeeded the Dutch in 1712, seem not to have found any Dodos remaining in the island; their descendants and successors have preserved no traditions of the living bird; and Baron Grant, who resided in the Mauritius from 1740 to 1760, expressly states that no such bird was to be found there at that time18.
Mr. Broderip refers, in his History of the Dodo, to the notice by Adam Olearius, in 1666, of the head of that bird in the museum of the Duke of Gottorp.
This specimen was most unexpectedly discovered by Professor Reinhardt in the Museum of Natural History at Copenhagen under the following circumstances:—“In the summer of 1840 I happened to search through a box wherein different natural-history objects were stored, which had been presented by the ‘Kunstkammer’ to the Royal Natural History Museum, and on this occasion I found a very large bird-cranium, which attracted my attention partly through its size, partly through its unusual and peculiar shape, and by a further examination and comparison with the authenticated representations of the Dodo, I became persuaded that it must have belonged to that remarkable bird.
“It is very well preserved, only wanting the left ‘os pterygoideum;’ and the ‘condylus occipitalis,’ together with the entire border of the ‘foramen magnum’ are broken away; otherwise it is quite perfect, so that an almost complete description of the osteology of the head of this remarkable genus may be made out from it. Although I have searched through Laurentz’s ‘Museum Regium’ and the MS. Catalogue of the ‘Kunstkammer,’ I have nowhere been able to discover any notice of such a cranium having ever been possessed by the Collection, and it is therefore clear that it has preserved the present specimen quite unwittingly, and it stands probably under one of the many numbers given as referring to heads of unknown foreign birds. I have meanwhile gradually come to the conclusion that this head is in all likelihood the one called ‘Dodo’s head’ by Olearius in the year 1666, in his description of the Gottorp Kunst-Museum, which, when that museum, at least in part, was amalgamated with the Copenhagen Museum, found its way there.” (Reinhardt, in ‘Kröyer’s Naturhist. Tidsskr.’ iv. pp. 71, 72 (1842)).
About ten years afterwards a portion of the bone of the upper beak of a Dodo was discovered in the Imperial and Royal Museum of Natural History at Prague19.
Such, until the year 1865, was the sum of the remains of this large, flightless, extinct bird which were known to have reached Europe.
The happy perception, by the Danish Professor J. Reinhardt, in 184320, of the resemblance of the beak of the Dodo to that of the tropical Doves, generically separated by Cuvier under the name Vinago, on account of their proportionately larger, more strongly arched, and compressed beak than in other Pigeons, and the still closer resemblance, in miniature, of the beak of the Samoan Dove to that of the great Mauritian bird, which led Titian Peale to give to the former the generic name Didunculus, directed the ornithologist and ornithotomist to the family in which the most instructive comparisons might be made; and the results of these, so far as relates to the head and foot and the bones of those parts, published by the authors of the above-cited work (p. 4), left little doubt of the “striking affinity which exists between this extinct bird and the Pigeons”21.
Whatever doubt, indeed, may have lingered in the minds of naturalists as to this affinity will probably be finally set at rest by the results of the comparison of the large proportion of the skeleton of the Didus ineptus which has at length been transmitted from the island of Mauritius to London, under the following circumstances.
In 1863, I was favoured by Miss A. Burdett Coutts with an introduction to the Bishop of Mauritius, then in this country, and I endeavoured to interest his lordship in aiding or promoting the acquisition, by the British Museum, of the zoological rarities of Madagascar, and especially of any remains of the Dodo which might be discovered in the island of Mauritius, to which his lordship was about to return.
How speedily and successfully the Bishop has fulfilled my latter desire will be shown by the following letter, with which I was favoured in November, 1865.
“St. James, Port Louis,
“October 7, 1865.
“My dear Sir,—when I had the pleasure of conversing with you for a short time in London two years ago, I promised to acquaint you with any facts or discoveries which might come to my knowledge, likely to interest you in connexion with Madagascar. I have not anything as yet to communicate definitely respecting that island in the way of natural history, but I have strong reasons to believe that a discovery has been made here recently which will gratify you very much. Mr. George Clark, who has for many years devoted himself to the work of teaching in this island with great success, is an ardent student of natural history, and has explored many parts of the island in search of information on the subject. From careful observation he was led to conclude that no remains of the Dodo were likely to be found in any of our watercourses, because of their steep descent and the immense rush of water which sweeps down them at times. But he had also frequently expressed his opinion that in certain marshes, with high banks of sand between them and the sea, such remains would probably be found. In one of these places he has found several of the bones of the Dodo (as he believes), and is now forwarding them home for your inspection22.
“At his request, I write these lines to ask for your kind care of his interests in securing any reward which may accrue to him. It would be a great pleasure to me to find that his discovery was really important, and likely to be useful to himself; for he has pursued these and similar investigations with an amount of intelligence, skill, and diligence, in his vacation-times (by no means extensive), which deserves much credit and encouragement.
“The book which you kindly sent me on the Aye-Aye has been read by many, and especially by medical men, with much interest. I entrusted the other copy to Mr. John Douglas for the Society here.
“I remain, my dear Sir,
“Your very faithful Servant,
(Signed) “Vincent N. Mauritius.”
“Professor Owen.”
This letter was accompanied with the following “Statement” by Mr. George Clark, Master of the Government School at Mahébourg, Island of Mauritius:—
“On the estate called ‘Plaisance,’ about three miles from Mahébourg, in the island of Mauritius, there is a ravine of no great depth or steepness, which, apparently, once conveyed to the sea the drainings of a considerable extent of circumjacent land, but which has been stopped to seaward, most likely for ages, by an accumulation of sand extending all along the shore. The outlet from this ravine having been thus impeded, a sort of bog has been formed, called ‘La Mare aux Songes,’ in which is a deposit of alluvium, varying in depth, on account of the inequalities of the bottom, which is formed of large masses of basalt, from three to ten or twelve feet. The proprietor of the estate a few weeks ago conceived the idea of employing this alluvium as manure; and shortly after, the men began digging in it; when they had got to a depth of three or four feet they found numerous bones of large tortoises, among which were a carapace and a plastron pretty nearly entire, as also several crania.
“When I heard of this, it immediately struck me that the spot was one of the most likely possible to contain bones of the Dodo, and I gave directions to the men working there to look out for any bones they might find. Nothing, however, was turned up but a fragment of what I supposed to be the humerus of a large bird. This encouraged me to look further; and my search was rewarded by the discovery of several tibiæ, more or less perfect, two tarsi, one nearly perfect pelvis, and fragments of three others.
“These were found imbedded in a black vegetable mould, the lighter-coloured specimens being near the springs. My reasons for believing these to be remains of the Dodo are:—the certainty that that bird once existed in Mauritius; the similarity of these bones to what the representations of the Dodo which I have seen would lead one to expect, particularly the breadth of the pelvis, the stoutness of the tibiæ and tarsi, and the shortness of the latter; the favourable nature of the spot in which they were found for the haunts of such birds when living—a sheltered hollow with two springs in it; the non-existence, actual or traditional, in Mauritius of any bird to which bones such as these could have belonged; the indubitable antiquity of these bones, proved by the deposit of alluvium which covered them.
“During nearly thirty years that I have inhabited this colony, I have made frequent inquiries of old people as to the finding of the bones of large birds, and have offered liberal rewards for such; and I have consulted with the late Dr. Ayres as to the spots most likely to contain them. We agreed that the floods which sweep the hill-sides and the ravines in the rainy season would be most likely to carry any remains into the sea; and this would doubtless have been the case here, but for the stoppage occasioned by the sand-down.
(Signed) “George Clark. 1865.”
The above “Statement” was authenticated by the following testimony:—
“Having visited the place with Mr. Clark, I can vouch for the truth of the facts herein mentioned.
(Signed) “William Thomas Banks,
“Civil Chaplain, Mauritius.”
“The Rev. W. T. Banks, Civil Chaplain at Mahébourg, in this diocese, and Mr. George Clark, Master of the Government School at Mahébourg, are well known to me, and deserving implicit credit for their statements as to matters of fact.
(Signed) “Vincent N. Mauritius. Oct. 6, 1865.”