Can the name oiseau de Nazaret have been a blunder, founded on oiseau de nausée, the French
translation of Walghvogel ?
We will now put Cauche himself in the witness-box :—
“ Fay veu dans F isle Maurice des oiseaux plus gros qu’un cygne,1 sans plumes par le corps, qui
est couvert d’un duvet noir, il a le cul tout rond, le croupion orné de plumes crespues, autant en nombre
que chaque oiseau a d’années, au lieu d’aisles ils ont pareilles plumes que ces dernieres, noires et
recourbées, ils sont sans langues, le bec gros, se courbant un peu par dessous, hauts de jambes, qui sont
escaillées, n’ayans que trois ergots à chaque pied. Il a un cry comme l’oison, il n’est du tout si
savoureux à manger, que les fouches et feiques [flamingos and ducks], desquelles nous venons de parler.
Us ne font qu’ un oeuf, blanc, gros comme un pain d’un sol, contre lequel ils mettent une pierre blanche,
de la grosseur d’un oeuf de poules. Ils ponnent sur de l’herbe qu’ils amassent, et font leurs nids dans
les forests, si on tue le petit, on trouve une pierre grise dans son gesier, nous les appellions oiseaux de
Nazaret. La graisse est excellente pour adoucir les muscles et nerfs.”—Relation du Voyage de
François Cauche, p. 130.3
11. Our next evidence is of a very important kind, as it shews that in one instance at least
this extraordinary bird was brought alive to Europe, and exhibited in this country. In a MS.
(Sloane MSS., 1839, 5, p. 9) in the British Museum, Sir Hamon Lestrange (the father of the
more celebrated Sir Roger), in a commentary on Brown’s Vulgar Errors, and apropos of the
Ostrich, narrates as follows l i j i |S
"About 1638, as I walked London streets, I saw the picture of a strange fowle hong out upon a
cloth, [hiatus in the MS.] and myselfe with one or two more then in company went in to see it. It
was kept in a chamber, and was a great fowle somewhat bigger than the largest Turky 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, and on the back of dunn or deare coulour. The keeper called it a Dodo, and in
the ende of a chymney in the chamber there lay a heape of large pebble stones, whereof hee gave it
many in our sight, some as bigg as nutmegs, and the keeper told us shee eats them (conducing to
digestion), and though I remember not how farr the keeper was questioned therein, yet I am confident
that afterwards shee cast them all againe.” 8
I have endeavoured to find some confirmation from contemporary authorities of this very
interesting statement, but hitherto without success. The middle of the 17th century was
most prolific in pamphlets, newspapers, broadsides, “ rows of dumpy quartos,” and literary
“ rubbish-mountains,” as Mr. Carlyle designates them ; but the political storms of that period
rendered men blind to the beauties and deaf to the harmonies of Nature, and its literature is
very barren in physical research. Still there may possibly finger among our records some
1 “ La figure de cet oiseau est dans la 2 navigation des Hollandois aux Indes Orientales en la 29 diée de l’an 1598.
Ils l’appellent, de nausée.”
2 “ Peut-estre, que ce nom leur a esté donné, pour avoir esté trouvéz dans l’isle de Nazare, qui est plus haut que
celle de Maurice, sous le 17 degré au delà l’Equateur du costé du Sud.”
3 This passage was first published in Wilkin’s edition of Sir Thomas Brown’s Works, 4 vols. 8vo. Lond., 1836.
v. 1, p. 369 ; v. 2, p. 173:
black-letter hand-bill or illiterate tract, which may allude to what must have been, in that
marvel-loving though unscientific age, a very attractive exhibition. To the bibliophile who
shall discover such a document, I promise a splendidly-bound copy o f T h e D odo-b o o k . In
the meanwhile we will pass on to the
• 12th independent notice of the Dodo, which is contained in Tradescant’s Catalogue of
his “ Collection of Rarities preserved at South Lambeth near London,” 1656. We here find
one of the entries “ Dodar from the island Mauritius; it is not able to flie being so
big.”—p. 4.
This specimen is enumerated under the head of “ whole birds ;” and Willughby, whose
“ Ornithologia” was published in 1676, speaking of the Dodo, says, “ Exuvias hujusce avis
vidimus in museo Tradescantiano.” It is also alluded to by Llhwyd1 in 1684, and by Hyde2
in 1700, having meanwhile passed with the rest of Tradescant’s curiosities into the Ashmolean
Museum at Oxford, where the head and foot of this specimen are fortunately still extant. I
shall speak farther of these hereafter, and will at present only remark that this is in all probability
the same individual which was exhibited in London, and which Lestrange described in
1688. Tradescant, we know, spent his life in collecting curiosities ; and as there was at that
time scarcely any other museum, public or private, in Great Britain to enter into competition
with his, we may suppose that such a rara avis as this five Dodo must have been, would
naturally on its decease find its way into his cabinet.3 Another not impossible conjecture is,
that this specimen was brought from Mauritius by Sir T. Herbert, who in a letter to Ashmole,
quoted in Hamel’s “ Tradescant der Aeltere,” p. 173, says, “ South Lambeth, a place I well
know, having been sundry times at M. Tredescon’s (to whom I gave severall things I collected
in my travels).” 1 think, however, that had the garrulous Sir Thomas actually killed,
skinned, and brought home a Dodo, he would not have failed to record such an exploit in
his Travels.
13. In Piso’s edition of Bontius, 1658, there is a description and figure of thè Dodo,
though perhaps neither can be regarded as original and independent testimonies. The figure
seems to be copied from one of Savery’s paintings, of which I shall speak presently, and the
description adds little, if anything, to the details contained in previous authors. Copies of this
engraving were subsequently published in Thevenot’s Voyages, vol. 1, in Willughby’s
Ornithology, pi. 27, and other works ; but as Piso’s figure is the earliest known copy from
1 Catalogus Animalium quse in Museo Ashmoleano conservantur ; MS. No. 29.
2 Historia Religionis veterum Persarum. 4to. Oxon. 1700, p. 312. Apropos of Zoroaster’s mother, whose name
was Dodo. He quotes Herbert’s account, and adds (on what authority is unknown) that the bird laid numerous
eggs, though Cauche’s statement that it lays but one (confirmed by Leguat’s similar assertion of the Solitaire) is
more probable.
3 Since writing the above, I see that Dr. Hamel has come to a similar conclusion.—Bull. Phys. Ac. Petersb.
May 29,1846.
H