of the dodo after the commencement of the
seventeenth century; and there is a painting of it in the British Museum,
which is said to have been taken from a living individual. Beneath the
painting is a leg, in a fine state of preservation, which ornithologists
are agreed cannot belong to any other known bird. In the museum at Oxford,
also, there is a foot and a head, in an imperfect state, but M. Cuvier
doubts the identy of this species with that of which the painting is
preserved in London.

In spite of the most active search, during the last century, no
information respecting the dodo was obtained, and some authors have gone
so far as to pretend that it never existed; but amongst a great mass of
satisfactory evidence in favour of the recent existence of this species,
we may mention that an assemblage of fossil bones were recently discovered,
under a bed of lava, in the Isle of France, and sent to the Paris museum
by M. Desjardins. They almost all belonged to a large living species of
land-tortoise, called _Testudu Indica_, but amongst them were the head,
sternum, and humerus of the dodo. M. Cuvier showed me these valuable
remains in Paris, and assured me that they left no doubt in his mind that
the huge bird was one of the gallinaceous tribe.

Next to the direct agency of man, his indirect influence in multiplying
the numbers of large herbivorous quadrupeds of domesticated races, may be
regarded as one of the most obviate causes of the extermination of species.
On this, and on several other grounds, the introduction of the horse, ox,
and other mammalia, into America, and their rapid propagation over that
continent within the last three centuries, is a fact of great importance
in natural history. The extraordinary herds of wild cattle and horses
which overran the plains of South America, sprang from a very few pairs
first carried over by the Spaniards; and they prove that the wide
geographical range of large species in great continents does not
necessarily imply that they have existed there from remote periods.
Humboldt observes, in his Travels, on the authority of Azara, that it is
believed there exist, in the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, twelve million cows
and three million horses, without comprising in this enumeration the
cattle that have no acknowledged proprietor. In the Llanos of Caraccas,
the rich hateros, or proprietors of pastoral farms, are entirely ignorant
of the number of cattle they possess. The young are bra