d Mauritius; it is not
able to flie, being so big.' We shall presently have occasion to
detail the subsequent history of this interesting specimen.

The last notice of the dodo's existence is found in a manuscript
journal--in the Sloane Collection--kept by a 'Mr Ben. Harry,' who was
chief officer of the English ship _Berkley Castle_, on a voyage to and
from India in 1679. It appears that, the ship becoming leaky on their
return voyage, they 'made for the Marushes,' where they repaired the
vessel, and landed and dried the cargo. At this point of their
proceedings, we shall let this intelligent mariner speak for himself:
'Now, having a little respitt, I will make a little description of the
island, ffirst of its producks, then of its parts: ffirst, of all
winged and feathered ffowle, the less passant are dodos, whose fflesh
is very hard. The Dutch, pleading a property in this island because of
their settlement, have made us pay for goates one penny per pound.'

Though the Dutch did not form a regular settlement on the Mauritius
till 1644, yet their vessels and those of other nations frequently
called for supplies; and many persons--runaway seamen and
others--lived on the island. It is not surprising that the awkward,
slow-paced dodo, incapable of flight, and whose nest, as we are told
by Cauche, never contained more than one egg, became totally extinct
soon after coming into contact with man. Nor would man alone be
directly the dodo's destroyer; his immediate followers, the cat, hog,
and dog, must have been fatal neighbours to its young. Leguat, a
gentleman of education, spent several months on the Mauritius in 1693,
but makes no mention of the dodo. He says: 'This island was formerly
full of birds, but now they are becoming very scarce;' and further
adds: 'Here are pigs of the China breed. These beasts do a great deal
of damage to the inhabitants, by devouring all the young animals they
can catch.' Less than a century, then, sufficed to extirpate the dodo.
It was first seen in 1598--it was last noticed in 1679; and as Leguat,
in 1693, does not mention it, we may conclude that it became extinct
at some period between the last two dates. In 1712, the Dutch
evacuated the Mauritius, and three years afterwards the French took
possession, naming it l'Ile de France. With this change of population,
the very tradition of the dodo's existence on that island was
completely lost.

The relics of the dodo, still left to admiring na