Alfred Newton and Hans Friedrich Gadow

“ The last evidence we have of the dodo’s existence is furnished by a journal kept by Benj. Harry, and now in the British Museum (MSS. Addit. 3668. II. D) . This shows its survival till 1681, but the writer’s sole remark upon it is that its “fflesh is very hard.” The successive occupation of the island by different masters seems to have destroyed every tradition relating to the bird, and doubts began to arise whether such a creature had ever existed. ”

“ In the catalogue of Tradescant’s Collection of Rarities, preserved at South Lambeth, published in 1656, we have entered among the “Whole Birds,” a “Dodar from the island Mauritius; it is not able to flie being so big.” This specimen may well have been the skin of the bird seen by Lestrange some eighteen years before, but anyhow we are able to trace the specimen through Willughby, Edward Llwyd and Thomas Hyde, till it passed in or before 1684 to the Ashmolean collection at Oxford. ”

“ It is plain that he could not have reached Mauritius till 1629, though 1627 has been usually assigned as the date of his visit. The fullest account he gives of the bird is in his edition of 1638: “The Dodo comes first to a description: here, and in Dygarrois [3] (and no where else, that ever I could see or heare of) is generated the Dodo (a Portuguize name it is, and has reference to her simpleness,) a Bird which for shape and rareness might be call’d a Phoenix (wer’t in Arabia:) ” &c. ”

“ Schlegel’s supposed origin of “Dodo.” The Portuguese must have been the prior nomenclators, and if, as is most likely, some of their nation, or men acquainted with their language, were employed to pilot the Hollanders, we see at once how the first Dutch name Walghvögel would give way. The meaning of Doudo not being plain to the Dutch, they would, as is the habit of sailors, convert it into something they did understand. Then Dodaers would easily suggest itself. ↑ The Dodo and its Kindred, by H. E. Strickland and A. G. Melville (London, 1848, 4to) . ”

“ Dr Henry Duncan, Scottish minister and journalist, in 1828, showed how ill-founded these doubts were, and some ten years later William John Broderip with much diligence collected all the available evidence into an admirable essay, which in its turn was succeeded by Strickland’s monograph just mentioned. But in the meanwhile little was done towards obtaining any material advance in our knowledge, Prof. Reinhardt’s determination of its affinity to the pigeons (Columbae) excepted ”