those islands, has reported that the bird feeds upon bulbous roots. Its first discoverer,
Mr. Titian Peale, an American naturalist (whose account is, I believe, still unpublished),
saw something in its form or habits that reminded him of the Dodo, and hence its generic
name. Sir W. Jardine, who first described the bird, under the name of Gnathodon strigi-
rostris, in the Annals of Natural History, vol. xvi. p. 175, referred it conjecturally to the
Megapodidce, though he recognised in it several dove-like characters. And Mr. Gould, who
has given two figures of it in his Birds of Australia, Part 22, pronounces that the bird
approaches nearest to the Pigeons. We shall soon see that the Didine and Columbine
hypotheses, though apparently incongruous, resolve themselves (as often happens) into one
Truth.
Although certain genera of Columbida are thus seen to assume a form of beak resembling
that of the Raptores, yet no two groups in the same class can be more opposed in habits and
affinities than the “ feroces Aquilse ” and “ imbelles Columbae.” I t is interesting, however,
to observe that mechanical strength, whether for the devouring of animal or vegetable
substances, is obtained in both cases by a similarity of structure.
If now we regard the Dodo as an extreme modification, not of the Vultures, but of these
Vulture-like frugivorous pigeons, we shall, I think, class it in a group whose characters are far
more consistent with what we know of its structure and habits. There is no a priori reason why
a Pigeon should not be so modified, in conformity with external circumstances, as to be incapable
of flight, just as we see a Grallatorial bird modified into an Ostrich, and a Diver into
a Penguin. Now we are told that Mauritius, an island forty miles in length and about one
hundred miles from the nearest land, was, when discovered, clothed with dense forests of palms
and various other trees. A bird adapted to feed on the fruits produced by these forests
would, in that equable climate, have no occasion to migrate to distant lands; it would revel in
the perpetual luxuriance of tropical vegetation, and would have but little need of locomotion.
Why then should it have the means of flying ? Such a bird might wander from tree to tree,
tearing with its powerful beak the fruits which strewed the ground, and digesting their stony
kernels with its powerful gizzard, enjoying tranquillity and abundance, until the arrival of
Man destroyed the balance of Animal Life, and put a term to its existence. Such, in my
opinion, was the Dodo, a colossal, brevipennate, frugivorous P i g e o n .1
The first idea of referring the Dodo to the neighbourhood of the Pigeons, originated
with Professor J. T. Reinhardt of Copenhagen, the discoverer of the cranium in the Gottorf
Museum. When I was at Copenhagen in 1845, Professor Reinhardt was then absent on a
1 Mr. E. Blyth, in an excellent treatise on the Cohimbida (Joum. As. Soc. Beng. vol. xiv. p. 858, and Ann. Nat.
Hist. vol. xix. p. 99), speaking of the Gourinee or Ground Pigeons, says : “ Some much resemble Partridges in their
mode of life; * * * * other genera are completely sylvan in their abode, feeding on the ground, more especially
on fallen fruits and berries. Such are the magnificent Gouras of the Moluccas and New Guinea, * * * * and
the elegant hackled Ground Pigeons (Calcenas), one of which abounds in the forests of the Malay Peninsula, and in
the Nicobar, Andaman, and Cocos Isles.”
voyage round the world, but I was orally informed that he considered the Dodo to be intermediate
between the Pigeons and the Gallinaceous birds. On subsequently examining the
remains which we possess in Britain, I soon saw reasons for classing this bird even nearer
to the Pigeons than I then understood it to be placed by Professor Reinhardt. This gentleman,
however, has lately visited London on his return from his distant voyage, and has
informed me that, before he left Denmark in 1845, he had pointed out, in his letters to
several Swedish and Danish zoologists, “ the striking affinity which exists between this
extinct bird and the Pigeons, especially the Trerons.”
I will now briefly notice the points of agreement in the structure of the Dodo, and in
that of the Pigeons, which serve to substantiate the above hypothesis.
A. External characters.—1. The whole group of Pigeons are remarkable for having the corneous
portion of the beak very short, the basal portion long, slender, and covered with a soft naked skin, all
which characters exist in the Dodo, but not in the Gallinaceous birds, nor, with the exception of the
Catharünoe, in the Raptores. In all birds the basal portion of the mandibles, whether feathered or
bare, is divided from the corneous termination by a separating line; but in the Raptores this basal
portion, instead of being depressed, soft, and vascular, as in the Dodo and the Pigeons, is prominent
and somewhat hard and homy, resembling wax in appearance, whence it has received the name of cere.
The Catlartinoe are the only Raptores which have a soft cere, and in this very superficial character
they may certainly be said to resemble the Dodo.
2. In some species of Treron, in Geophaps, Macropygia, and othèr Columbine genera, the eyes are
surrounded by a naked skin, which, if extended over the face, so as to join the bare basal portion of
the beak, would produce the appearance which we see in the Didus. In those rare genera, Verrulia
and Didwiculm (see plate VII.), this junction of the ocular and rostral areæ actually takes place,
and a little more expansion of this naked surface over the forehead would transform those birds into
miniature Dodos.
3. In the two strongest beaked genera of Pigeons, Treron and Didimculm, the corneous portion
of the beak is strongly uncinate and compressed, while the tip of the lower mandible curves upwards,
and is overhung by the upper one. A comparison of plates V. and VII. will show how precisely this
conformation is repeated in Did/m.
4. In Treron and in JDidus the nostril is placed about the middle of the beak, close to the base
of the corneous portion, and near the lower margin. This forwa/rd and low position of the nostril
occurs more or less in other genera of Pigeons, but in no other family of birds, that I know of. Some
of the Vultures have this orifice equally forward, but none so low down as Treron or JDidus. (See
plate VII. fig. 3). Nor can any stress be laid on the supposed absence of an incumbent scale in the
Dodo (“ sans écaille supérieure ”), referred to by M. De BlainviUe as a Vulturine character. The only
meaning which we can attach to the phrase, “ nostrils furnished with an incumbent scale,” often met
with in Bird-books, is that the nostrils enter the beak obliquely, so that their upper margin overhangs
the lower. Now this is, in fact, the case in the Dodo, whose nostrils are remarkably oblique, and are
overhung above by a soft, tumid skin, agreeing herein with the Pigeons, and differing from the
Raptores.
5. We find in the Pigeons, even to a greater degree than in Didm, that sudden sinking from the
forehead to the beak, and the rapid narrowing of the beak in front of the orbits, which Professor