scribed by
Olearius as early as 1666, in the catalogue of the museum of the Duke
of Schleswig at Gottorf. In 1720, that museum was removed to
Copenhagen, but it was not till within the last few years, when the
history of the dodo excited so strongly the attention of naturalists,
that this head was successfully sought for, and disinterred from a
mass of rubbish, by Dr Reinhardt.

Many have been the conflicting opinions among naturalists with respect
to the class of birds the dodo should be placed in. Space will not
permit us to enter into these discussions. Suffice it to say, it is
generally agreed now that the dodo was a gigantic, short-winged,
fruit-eating pigeon. The English naturalist, Mr Strickland, who has
devoted an amazing amount of labour and research to the elucidation of
this mysterious question, and Dr Reinhardt of Copenhagen, were the
first who referred the dodo to the pigeon tribe, having arrived almost
simultaneously, by two distinct chains of reasoning, at the same
conclusion; and their opinion is corroborated by a dissection that was
lately made of part of the head at Oxford.

There can be no doubt that the dodo was one of those instances, well
known to naturalists, of a species, or part of a species, remaining
permanently in an undeveloped state. As the Greenland whale never
acquires teeth, but remains a suckling all its life; as the proteus of
the Carniolian caverns, and the axolotl of the Mexican lakes, never
attain a higher form than that of the tadpole; so the dodo may be
described as a permanent nestling covered with down, and possessing
only the rudiments of tail and wings. Nor are we to consider such
organisations as imperfect. Evidently intended for peculiar situations
and habits of life, they are powerful evidences of the design
displayed in the works of an All-wise Creator. Wandering about in the
forests of the Mauritius, where, previous to the advent of man, it had
not a single enemy, the dodo, revelling in the perpetual luxuriance of
a tropical climate, subsisted on the nuts that fell from the
surrounding trees. Its powerful bill enabled it to break, and its
capacious, stone-supplied gizzard to digest, the hardest shells and
kernels; and thus a kind of frugivorous vulture, it cleared away the
decaying vegetable matter. In no other place than an island,
uninhabited by man or any other animal of prey, could the helpless
dodo have existed. Some fancy it may yet be found in Madagascar. Vain
i