. Reptiles and birds. A popular account of the various orders; with a description of the habits and economy of the most interesting. . ogical Society of London has three specimens. Extinct BREviPENNiE. The order of the Brevipejinc^ may be held to embrace some Birdswhich have now disappeared from the surface of the globe, butwhich are supposed to be contemporaneous with Man. The remainswhich are met with in quite modern alluvium scarcely admit of anydoubt in this respect. In the first rank of extinct birds we may place the Dodo {pidusineptus, Fig. 147), which was indigenous to the Mauritius and
. Reptiles and birds. A popular account of the various orders; with a description of the habits and economy of the most interesting. . ogical Society of London has three specimens. Extinct BREviPENNiE. The order of the Brevipejinc^ may be held to embrace some Birdswhich have now disappeared from the surface of the globe, butwhich are supposed to be contemporaneous with Man. The remainswhich are met with in quite modern alluvium scarcely admit of anydoubt in this respect. In the first rank of extinct birds we may place the Dodo {pidusineptus, Fig. 147), which was indigenous to the Mauritius and the 368 REPTILES AND BIRDS. Isle of France, where it used to be abundant, if we may believe thetestimony of the companions of Vasco de Gama, who visited therein 1497. At the end of the seventeenth century some of them stillexisted. Former travellers have described them; and these ac-counts, with skeletons and an oil paintmg in the British Museum,are the only information which we possess regarding them. The Dodo was a fat and heavy bird, and weighed not less thanfifty pounds. Its portly body was supported on short legs, provided. Fig. 147.—The Dodo. with ridiculously small wings, making it equally incapable of runningor flying, thus dooming the bird to rapid destruction. Lastly andprincipally, it had a stupid physiognomy, but little calculated to con-ciliate the sympathies of the observer. Its hind parts were decoratedwith three or four curly feathers, representing a tail, whilst in front itpresented an enormous curved bill, which occupied nearly the wholeof the head. The Dodo did not even possess the merit of being useful afterits death, for its flesh was disagreeable and of a bad flavour. Onthe whole there is not much reason to regret its extinction. In the island of Madagascar fossil eggs and bones were found ofa bird belonging to a species probably extinct, the proportions of COL OS SAL BIRDS, 3 69 which must have been truly colossal. One of these eggs was equalto at leas
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, booksubjectbirds, booksubjectrep
