3U PICTORIAL E V I D E N C E S [PART I.
list of the species which the picture sufficiently 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.
The bird is standing in profile with a lizard at its feet. Not any of the Dutch naturalists to whom I
applied for information respecting the picture, the artist, and his subject, seemed to be aware of the
existence of this evidence of the Dodo in the Hague collection."—Penny Cyclopaedia, vol. xxiii. p. 113.
8. Shortly after visiting the Hague in 1S45, I made a search in the Royal Gallery at
Berlin, which contains several of Roland Savory's highly finished paintings. Among them I
found one which represents numerous animals in Paradise, one of which is a Dodo, of about
the same size and in nearly the same attitude as the figure last mentioned. But what renders
this picture peculiarly interesting is, that it affords us a date, the words " Roclandt Savcry
fe. 1626," being painted in one corner. (Sec Frontispiece.) As Roland Savory was born in
1570, he was 23 years old when Van Neck's expedition returned to Holland; and as we are
told by Dc 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 then later pictures. Or if we feel
disposed (for the reasons given at p. 11, supra) to doubt the correctness of Dc Bry's statement,
we may yet suppose, with Professor Owen, that the menagerie of Prince Maurice supplied
the living prototype for Savory'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. Pctersb. vol. v.
p. 317) that Savory's pictures were copied from the Dodo exhibited in London, as this individual
must in that case have lived in captivity at least 12 years, from 1620 to 1638.
4. The present sheet was just rescued from the printer in time to announce an important
addition to our Pictorial Evidence. Dr. J. J. de Tschudi, the eminent Peruvian traveller,
hearing that this work was in preparation, has had the kindness to transmit to me an exact
copy of a figure of the Dodo by Roland Savery, which forms part of a picture in the imperial
collection of the Bellvedcre at Vienna, and which is here introduced. (Plate III.) Dr. Tschudi
states that this picture is dated 1628; two years later than the Berlin one. There arc two
circumstances which give an especial interest to this painting. First, the novelty of attitude
in the Dodo, exhibiting an activity of character which corroborates the supposition that the
artist had a living model before him, and contrasting strongly with the aspect of passive
stolidity in the other pictures. And, secondly, the Dodo is represented as watching, apparently
with hungry looks, the merry wrigglings of an eel in the water! Are we hence to
infer that the Dodo fed upon eels ? The advocates of the Raptorial affinities of the Dodo,
simile of Si-veiy's picture of lie D O B © , in the BeUvedere at "Vienna