to have attracted 110 further notice till 1793, when Dr. Shaw gave a figure of it in his
Naturalists' Miscellany, pi. 143. This foot seems to have belonged to a somewhat larger
individual than the Ashmolean specimen, and from its excellent preservation exhibits the
external characters of the tarsus and toes in a very interesting manner. (See Plate VI.)
2. The stuffed specimen of the Dodo mentioned in the catalogue of Tradescant's Museum,
1656, was bequeathed with the rest of his curiosities to Elias Ashmole, the munificent founder
of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. Here it remained in an entire, if not a very perfect
state, till 1755, when the Vice-Chancellor and the other Trustees, to whose guardianship the
worthy Ashmole had confided his treasures, came in an unlucky hour to make their annual
visitation of the Museum. In those days Oxford presented the still existing anomaly of a
University, hi which Zoology was not publicly taught as a science; the Royal Society had long
removed to the metropolis, the Ashmolean Society was as yet unborn, and the Taylor Institution
had not opened a door to continental literature. The literary and scientific ardour which
Lister, Plott, Aubrey, Ashmole, Wood, Llhwyd, and others had awakened in the 17th century
had now subsided, and the University seems to have relapsed into the scholastic torpor of the
middle ages. We need not therefore wonder at the fate which befel the L A S T OP THE DODOS.
This imhappy specimen, then at least a century old, had, it appears, become decayed by time
and neglect; and according to a record now extant, was, with many others, " ordered to be
removed at a meeting of a majority of the visitors."2 On this fatal decree, Mr. Lyell appropriately
remarks (and Mr. Broderip will forgive my re-quoting the passage):—
" Some have complained that inscriptions on tombstones convey no general information except that
individuals were born and died—accidents which happen alike to all men. But the death of a species
is so remarkable an event in natural history, that it deserves commemoration; and it is with no small
interest that we learn from the archives of the University of Oxford the exact day and year when the
remains of the last specimen of the Dodo, winch had been permitted to rot in the Ashmolean Museum,
were cast away. The, relics we are told were " a Museo subducta, annuentibus Vice-cancellario aliisque
Curatoribus, ad ea lustranda convocatis, die Januarii 8vo, A.D. 1755."
By a lucky accident, however, a small portion of this last descendant of an ancient race
escaped the clutches of the destroyer. The head and one of the feet were saved from the
flames, and are still preserved in the Ashmolean Museum. The head is figured in Plate V.,
and is in tolerable preservation, exhibiting the remarkable form of the beak and nostrils,
the bare skin of the face, and the partially feathered occiput which the old authors compared
to a hood. The eyes still remain dried within the sockets, but the corneous extremity
of the beak has perished, so that it scarcely exhibits that strongly hooked termination so
conspicuous in all the original portraits. The deep transverse grooves are also visible,
though less developed than in the paintings, from which, and from its inferior size we may
infer it to have been a female specimen. The scientific value of this specimen has lately been
2 For particulars of this act of well meant, but too sweeping, reform, sec Mr. J. Duncan's paper in the Zoological
Journal, vol.in. p. 559.
very greatly increased by the careful dissection which Dr. Acland, the Lecturer in Anatomy,
has made of one side of the cranium.1 By dividing the skin down the mesial line, and
removing it from the left side, the entire osteological structure of this extraordinary skull is
exposed to view, while on the other side of the head the external covering remains undisturbed.
See Plates VIII. and IX.
The foot, which accompanies this interesting cranium, was formerly covered with decomposed
integuments, which presented few external characters. These have recently been
removed by Dr. Kidd, the Professor of Medicine, who has made an interesting preparation of
the osseous and tendinous structures, and exhibited some remarkable characters to which I
shall presently advert.
3. I have now to speak of the cranium, mentioned by Olcarius as being, in 1666, in the
Gottorf Museum at Copenhagen. This specimen, after being forgotten for nearly two
centuries, was veiy lately discovered by Professor C. Bernhardt (see Kroyer's Tidskrift, vol.iv.
p. 71, and Lehmann in Nov. Act. Ac. Leop. Car. vol. xxi. p. 491), amongst a heap of venerable
rubbish, and is now in the public museum at Copenhagen, where, two years ago, I had an
opportunity of examining it. All the soft parts are removed, and it exhibits the same
important osteological characters which have been recently brought to light in the Oxford
head. It is, however, less perfect, the base of the occiput being removed. It is about half
an inch shorter than the Ashmolean specimen, and proportionably smaller.
These are the only known fragments which arc ascertained to be genuine relics of the
Dodo. Yet it cannot be doubted that if a judicious series of researches were made in the
caves and superficial deposits of the island of Mauritius, many more osseous remains might be
disinterred, and possibly the entire skeleton might be reconstructed. I rejoice to find, by a
recent letter from G. C. Cuninghanic, Esq. to Sir W. C. Trevclyan, that this problem has
attracted the attention of the Natural History Society of Mauritius, who propose making
excavations for this especial object.
Let us now endeavour to combine into one view the results of the historical, pictorial, and
anatomical data which we possess respecting the Dodo. We must figure it to ourselves as a
massive clumsy bird, ungraceful in its form, and with a slow waddling motion. We cannot
form a better idea of it than by imagining a young Duck or Gosling enlarged to the dimensions
of a Swan. It affords one of those cases, of which we have many examples in Zoology,
where a species, or a part of the organs in a species, remains permanently in an undeveloped
or infantine state. Such a condition has reference to peculiarities in the mode of hfe of the
animal, which render certain organs unnecessary, and they therefore are retained through life
1 Zoologists are indebted to P. B. Duncan, Esq., Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, who liberally permitted
this important dissection of a unique specimen to take place, and I have great pleasure also in recording that it
was performed " annuentibus Vice-cancellario aliisque Curatoribus," A.D. 18-1-7.