Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 06.djvu/404

* DODINGTON. 350 DODS. publUlitil in lTb+, gives au iuteresting picture of the |>liliial luij jrocial life of the times. DODO ( NooLat. didus. Port, doudo, simple- ton. ]ius>il>ly conrnttcd «ilh I>vonshire, Engl. dolJ. ilolt. lit. dulled, from dull I . or Dkonte (Dutch, of unknown origin, bloated). An extinct bird {Didus hu'iitus) of Jlanritlus, .lUieil to the pigeons, and representing a family Didida'. which was conlined to the Mauritius, Rodriguez, and DODO. (After an old print in the Britlsli Museum.) Bourbon group of islands, and became extinct to- ward the end of the seventeenth century. It is described by several voyagers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, who also spoke of it as 'walghvogel' and "droiite.' and seems even to have been brought alive to Europe. The descriptions of those who saw it are confirmed by several more or less rude drawings preserved in various Euro- pean libraries and nuiseums, especially in Hol- land. These represent a bird larger than a swan; of a very heay and clumsy form and a corre- sponding" gait, "with short." thick, scale-covered legs; three rather short toes before and one be- biiid: large head; verj- large bill, the upper man- dible longer than the under, and nuu-b hooked at the point ; the wings so short as to be of no use for llighl, and furnished only with a few black feathers; the general plumage a kind of gray- ish down; the tail merely a tuft or bunch of curiously curled feathers. The dodo was so abvmdant when some of the first voyagers visited ilauritius that they became satiated with its flesh, which they describe, particularly the brcist, as good. The" birds were easily kilb'd, being wholly unable to fly, and running slowly. Tlicir speedy extinction after the islands began to be visited and settled is thus easily accoimted for; yet it seems to have been due to the increase of pigs, running loose upon the island, rather than directly to man. The dodo seems to have been adapted for living in tro]>ical woods, where the luxuriant vegetation afTorde<l it a ready supply of fooil, and its powerful hooked beak was adapt- ed to tearing vegetable and not animal sib- etanees. One traveler asserts that these birds ut- tered a cry like a gosling, and laid a single large whit* egg on a mass of grass in the woods. Con- sult: Xewtim. Dictionary of Birds (London, 1890) ; Annual lie/iort I'tiiled i<tatcs Xational Museum (Washington, 1S8U) ; 'ou Eruueufeld. .Veu Aufgefundenv Alibilduiiy dea Uronlc ("ien- na, 18G8) ; .Strickland, The Uudu and lis Kiiiilnd (London, 184S). Compare Solit.vibe. See Ex- TlXfT .X1M.LS. DODCNA (Lat., from tik. AuSiivi/. OOdiJiiC). An .imienl city of Epirus. It was silviated in a lenilc valley about 11 miles southwest of the site of the modern Janina, on a hill project- ing from ilount Tomarus, and surrounded b- rugged mountains. It was the seat of a very ancient oracle and cull of Zeus (snrnanied the Pclasgian), Dione, and Aphrodite. In Homer the prophets are called Sidloi or more prob- ably Helloi, but later we hear of three priest- esses, the Peleiades, or •doves.' A local legend is said to attribute the origin of the oracle to a black dove, which sjioke with human voice from one of the neighboring oaks. The divine will was manifested by the rustling of the leaves in an oak-grove, by the ringing echoes from a bronze tripod, struck by the metal-tipped lashes of a whip rustling in the wind, and by the gushing or rippling of a fountain. It seems, indeed, that new methods of prophecy were inlroduci>d to compete with the rival oracle at Delphi. In the fifth century B.C. it enjoyed great credit, and was consulted by Spartans and Athenians, but later it waned in importance and was sacked by JEto- lians (B.C. 219) and Romans. In a.d. 516 a bishop of Dodona is mentioned, but after that the place disappears from history, and the very site was uncertain until the excavations of Carapanos in 1878. These brought to light a fortified acropo- lis, a theatre, and the sacred precinct, containing temples of Zeus and Aphrodite, and other buihi- ings connected with the oracle. Many small votive figures were discovered, and a nundicr of leaden tablets, containing questions addressed to the oracle, or, very rarely, an answer. Consult : Carapanos, Dodonc ct scs mines (Paris, 1878) ; Diehl, Excursions in Greece (London, 18i>3) ; Gardner. .Yc;r Chapters in Greek Uislory (Lon- don, 1892); Wachnig, Ve oraculo Uodonwo (Breslau, 1885). DODS, Marcis (1834—). A divine of the Scotch Tnilcd Free Church. He was born at Bel- ford. Northumberland. -Vpril II, 1834; took his master's degree at Edinburgh in 1854 and studied divinitv at Xew College. 1S54-58. Ht« was pastor of Ren'lield Free Church. (Ilasgow, lS(i4 8H. and since 1889 has been professor of Xew Testament theology in Xew College. Edinburgh. He is an admired preaehcT and author. Besides commen- taries on (Jenesis (1882). Haggai. Zacliariah. and Mahichi (1879). I. Corinthians and Thessalonians (1882), the notes on the Gospel of John in the Expositor's Greek Testament ( 1897), and the ex- positions of Genesis. .John, and L ('"rinlhians in the Expositor's Bible, be has published exposi- tions of the Lord's Prayer [The Prayer that Teaches to Pray, lfi(>3) ; of the Epistles to the Hcren Chiirc/ics ( 1805) ; The Parables of Our Lord (2 series, 1883-85) ; Israel's Iron Age (1874); Mohammed, ISuddha, and Christ (1877); Introduction to the cw Testament (1888); Erasmus and Other Essays (1891): ^y|||| llr h'eliyiousf (1897). DODS, Mko. The despotic landlady of the Mowliray .rms. a wellclrawn low-comedy charac- ter, in Scott's Saint Ronun's lie//.