Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 5.djvu/353

Rh When Pedro de Mascarenhas discovered the islands of the Indian Ocean, in the early years of the sixteenth century, Mauritius, Rodriguez, Bourbon, formerly St. Appolonia, and now Reunion Island, which were called, after the name of the Portuguese navigator, the Mascarene Islands, these regions, covered with rich vegetation, were inhabited by birds in great numbers. Besides species belonging to groups represented in other parts of the world, as parrots, sparrows, pigeons, ducks, there were living some species which excited the astonishment of the navigators by their really extraordinary appearance. There were the dronte, or dodo, and the hermit-bird, which have furnished modern authors the theme for numberless writings. Naturalists long cherished the hope of finding again, at some point of the globe, those strange creatures which had no near relationship with any other living being; but the most zealous research has been fruitless, and the hope is abandoned. Many efforts have been made, with the aid of some remains, and a few imperfect sketches, to reconstruct those strange, extinct birds in a scientific way, without any early satisfactory results. Lately, the bones of these vanished species, gathered in tolerably large quantities, either at Rodriguez, or from a marsh in Mauritius, have enabled us to gain clearer ideas of them.

The dodo exceeded the swan in size, and presented the most extraordinary appearance. It had a massive body, supported on thick, short legs, like pillars, a swollen neck, a round head set off by a fringe of feathers brought forward over the face like a hood, great black eyes, ringed with white, and a huge bill, of which the two mandibles, rounded and broad at the end, and terminating in a point in the other direction, have been compared to two spoons laid with the hollow of the bowls against each other. The dodo had wings; but these wings, quite small, mere elements of wings, could be used for nothing; it had a tail, but the tail was reduced to a sort of tuft, made of four or five curly feathers. Then it had silky plumage of a gray color, lighter on the lower parts than on the back, and shaded with yellow on the wings and tail. The animal, absolutely ugly, clumsy, and stupid in its look, inspired repugnance. Buffon, who spoke of it as we do, from sketches and descriptions given by ancient observers, says, that it would be taken for a turtle muffled in a bird's skin.

The earliest notices of the natural productions of Mauritius Island come to us from a voyage made by the Dutch, in 1598. Cornelius Van Neck, the leader of the expedition, finding the island uninhabited, took possession of it, and traveled through the country with his companions, and in the account of his voyage he notes the most remarkable animals and vegetables that were met with on the island. He speaks of the dodo, described as a Walgvogel, "a disgusting bird." The animal, represented by a rather coarsely-executed picture, is described in simple terms, of which this passage will give some idea. "It is a bird," the narrator says, "which we called the disgusting