of this bird of Nazareth having been seen by
any one but Cauche, yet, ever since, his phantom-like picture has
skulked in the obscurity, adding to the mystery which enveloped the
dodo. Time, however, has now exorcised it. There never was a bird of
Nazareth. What Cauche saw was undoubtedly a dodo; and his errors of
description are what any person, not a naturalist, might commit.
_Oiseau de Nazaret_ is simply a corruption of _oiseau de nausee_--the
original French name of the dodo, a literal translation of the
original Dutch walghvogel. It is a curious coincidence, that as the
bird of Nazareth has been found in books only, so the island of
Nazareth has been found only on paper. At first, it appeared quite a
respectable island; as maritime discovery progressed, it degenerated
to a reef, and from that to a shoal; till at last, expunged from the
more correct charts of modern hydrographers, it no longer can boast of
a local habitation or a name.

About the same time that Cauche was at the Mauritius, the citizens of
London were gratified by the sight of a living dodo. Of this very
interesting event, there is only one solitary record at present known,
but it is an authentic one. In a manuscript commentary on Sir Thomas
Browne's _Vulgar Errors_--preserved in the British Museum--written by
Sir Hamon L'Estrange, father of the more celebrated Sir Roger, there
occurs the following passage:--

'About 1638, as I walked London streets, I [3] the picture of a
strange fowle hung out upon a cloth [3]vas, and myselfe, with one or
two more then in company, went in to see it. It was kept in a chamber,
and was somewhat bigger than the largest turkey-cock, and so legged
and footed, but stouter and thicker, and of a more erect shape,
coloured before like the breast of a young cock-fesan, and on the back
of a dunne or deare colour. The keeper called it a dodo; and in the
end of a chymney in the chamber there lay a heap of large
pebble-stones, whereof hee gave it many in our sight, some as big as
nutmegs; and the keeper told us shee eats them (conducing to
digestion); and though I remember not how farr the keeper was
questioned therein, yet I am confident that afterwards she cast them
all againe.'

We next, in order of time, come to the famous Tradescant dodo. When or
where the Tradescants procured it, is unknown; it is first mentioned
in the catalogue of their museum, published by the surviving
Tradescant, in 1656, as 'a dodar from the islan