The enterprise-recorder. (Madison, Fla.) 1908-1933, 1910-06-16

5. The LAST HOME OF THE DOD0.
are easily digested in It; in that ard
shape not q little resembling the
Afllc oestriches."
But one living specimen Of the
dodo was ever known 10 have been
seen outside OF Mauritius This one
was brought alive 20 Europe by a
Dutch navigator, and exhibited in
London in 1889. The evidence Of
this IS contained in a manuscript in
the British Museum by Hamon LES
TRANCE, and Is as follows:
About 1898, as I walked London
streets, I saw the picture Of a strange
fowle hong out upon a cloth and my
selfe with one or two more then in
company went in TO see II. Il was
kept in a chamber, and was a great
fowle somewhat bigger than the
largest turky cock, and so legged and
footed, but shorter and thicker and
Of more erect shape, coloured be-
fore Ike the breast Of a young cock
fesan, and on the back Of dunn or
deare colour. The keeper called 1t
dodo. and in the ende OF a CHIMNEY
In the chamber there lay a heape Of
large pebble stones, whereof hee gave
% many in our sight, some as b!gge as
nutmegs. and the keeper told us shee
eats them conducting 70 digestlon)."
A distinctly plaintiye note in all
the literature extent concerning the
dodo eXcites curiosity and compass
sion. In his Introduction 10 the dodo
book. from which these extracts are
taken, this feeling IS appealed TO by
the author as follows: we cannot
see without regret the extinction Of
the last individual Of any race Of Or
ganic beings whose progenitors col
onized the preadamite earth"
An analysis Of the reason for a
specially compassionate interest in
the doio would seem 70 show that It
is founded on the strikingly gro
tesque character Of the bird, taken
with the fact that nature had been
/ cruelty unkind 70 her in the matter
/ Of equipment for self-defense. She
could neither run nor fly, but was, as
one traveller expressed Il, "a speci-
men Of gigantic immaturity, a per-
manent nesting clothed with down
| instead Of feathers, and with wings
and tail so short and feeble as TO be
utterly unsubseryient 10 flight"
OF this cruelty Of nature the dodo
herself appeared 10 be sensible, and
10 show It in her yisage," according
TO the account Of Sir Thomas Her
bert At any rate, II made the eE-
tinction OF the dodo, after the discov-
cry OF the Island of Mauritius by the
Portuguese about 1905, 80 swift and
complete as TO give It, TO one inter
ested, a flavor Of tragedy The last
Of the fifteenth century and the be.
ginning Of the sixteenth made an era
Of geographical discovery, when every
sea was filed with the barks of ex,
plorers and marauding buccaneers In
search OF new worlds To these ruth
less food hunters the dodo fell ar
easy prey, while the domestic animals
which accompanied civilization wan
tonly devoured her eggs.
In the narrative of one Of these ex
plorers. William van Vert Zanen
who visited Mauritius in 1902, hi
speaks Of killing fifty dodos and TAX
ing them on board his ship, where
they we're sailed. Assailed thus, boil
in front and rear, what wonder tina
the dodo's visage "darted forth mel
ancholy," or that It gave up the un
equal struggle? The cut here shown
accompanied Zanen's narrative, ant
Is supposed to be from a drawinl
made by him.
The scanty relics Of the dodo
amounting to little more than frag
ments of head, a leg and a foot, car
be found only in the treasured collec
tions of nations, while the painting
made from life Of this despised anC
martyred bird by Roelandt Saver.
are beyond price. From Youth
NnnAnanfnn