OH. I.] O F T H E DODO. 3]
of whom we shall soon speak, will doubtless reply in the affirmative, but as I hope shortly
to demonstrate that it belongs to a family of buds, all the other members of which are
frugivorous, I can only regard the introduction of the eel as a pictorial license. In this, as
in all his other paintings, Savery brought into juxta-position animals from all countries,
without regarding geographical distribution. His delineations of birds and beasts were
wonderfully exact, but his knowledge of natural history probably went no further, and
although the Dodo is certainly looking at the eel, yet we have no proof that he is going to
eat it. The mere collocation of animals in an artistic composition, cannot be accepted as
evidence against the positive truths revealed by Comparative Anatomy.
5. The last painting which I have to mention is the one presented to the Ashmolean
Museum at Oxford in 1813, by W. H. Darby, Esq., but of whose previous history nothing is
known. It is painted by John Savery, the nephew of Roland, and bears the date of 1651.
It appears to be copied from the same original design as the three first pictures above
referred to, but a remarkable feature in it is its colossal scale, the Dodo standing about 3 feet
6 inches high, and being nearly double the size which the picture in the British Museum, the
description of eye-witnesses, and the existing remains warrant us in attributing to the bird.
It is difficult to assign a motive to the artist for thus magnifying an object already sufficiently
uncouth in appearance. Were it not for the discrepancy of dates, I should have conjectured
that this was the identical " picture of a strange fowle hong out upon a cloth," which attracted
the notice of Sir Hamon Lestrange and his friends as they " walked London streets" in 1638;
the delineations used by showmen being in general more remarkable for attractiveness than
veracity.
SECTION III.—Real or Anatomical evidences—Dodo's foot in British Museum—Head andfoot at Oxford—
Head at Copenhagen—Probability of finding further remains hi Mauritius—Figure of Dodo as deduced
from evidence—Non-development of certain organs no proof of iniperfection.
I COME lastly to speak of the evidence afforded us by the few imperfect remains of this extraordinary
bud which have come down to us. Portions of probably three distinct individuals
of the Dodo are now extant in as many public museums. It is remarkable, as proving the
interest which the discovery of the Dodo excited in Europe, that each of these three specimens
is specially referred to in museum catalogues printed in the 17th century.
1. The first of these is the Dodo's leg, or rather foot, mentioned, as before stated, by
Hubert in 1665, and by Grew in 1681. From the cabinet of the Royal Society it was transferred
early in the last century to the British Museum, where it is now preserved.1 It appears
1 M. de Bloinvillc inadvertently states, that " this leg passed into the British Museum at the end of the last
or beginning of the present century, when the Museum was established through the influence of Sir J. Banks."
(Nouv. Ann. Mus. II. N. vol. iv. p. 15). A little more attention to names, dates, and such minutiae, would have
added to the value of this memoir.
K