d-one marvels displayed in the far-famed Palace
of Crystal during part of the last ever-memorable year, not the least
puzzling to the majority of visitors, was an object resembling a
stuffed bird more than any other production of art or nature, but very
unlike any bird previously observed by the wondering spectators in
either museum or menagerie, or even on the painted panels that
emblazon the crude and extravagant conceptions of mediaeval heraldry.
In the catalogue, the really ingenious piece of workmanship was
entitled a 'Life-size model of the dodo'--a name, our readers know,
appertaining to a now extinct bird, the very existence of which was at
one time denied by shrewd men and good naturalists. Perhaps the
following history of this curious creature, from its first to its last
appearance before the eyes of men, will not be considered devoid of
interest.

In the year 1598, a division of a Dutch squadron on its way to Bantam,
rediscovered what was then called the island of Cerne; and a boat's
crew having been sent ashore to reconnoitre, returned with nine great
birds, a number of smaller ones, and the welcome intelligence of a
secure and convenient harbour. Those nine great birds were the first
of the doomed dodo race that ever came in contact with their destined
destroyer, man; at least, this is undoubtedly their first appearance
on record. The exact date of such an event is note-worthy: it occurred
on the 18th of May. De Warwijk, the Dutch admiral, brought his ships
into the harbour; and finding no traces of man--the birds being so
unused to his presence, that they suffered themselves to be caught by
hand--took formal possession of the island, changing its name to
Mauritius, in honour of Prince Maurice, then Stadtholder of Holland.
Immense tortoises, delicious fish, thousands of turtledoves, and dodos
_a discretion_, regaled the half-starved and scurvy-stricken seamen.
The name dodo, however, had not then been given. Warwick's men,
revelling in the luxuries of this virgin isle, became fastidious.
Finding, after a hearty meal on the newly-discovered bird, that its
extreme fatness disagreed with them, they gave it the name of
_walghvogel_[1]--the nausea-causing bird. With our own experience--and
that is somewhat extensive--of sailors in general, and Dutch ones in
particular, we must infer that these dodos were very, very fat,
indeed. A narrative of this voyage[2] was published in Dutch at
Amsterdam in 1601, went thro