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THE DODO.

When the Dutch in the 16th century, took possession of the Isle of France, now called Mauritius, which up to that time had not been inhabited by man, they found a large bird something of the Duck kind, of which they sent home specimens and representations. They called it the Dodo, but why, I cannot tell you.

The race has now become extinct, so that many naturalists have declared that it never existed, and that the account of it was naughtily invented, and sent home for the gratification and delusion of

"Those who greedily pursue

Things wonderful instead of true."

But there is not the least doubt of its being a fact, for in the Museum in London there is a painting said to have been taken from the living bird; there is also a leg and a plaster cast of the head placed near the painting, which naturalists have determined could not have belonged to any other animal known, from their peculiar construction; there is also another foot and the head from which the cast was taken, preserved in the Museum of the University of Oxford, being the remains of an entire specimen which was kept in the collection of curiosities made by Elias Ashmole, Esq. till it rotted. This is representation of these two valuable relics.