The St. Mary banner. (Franklin, Parish of St. Mary, La.) 1889-1931, 1910-08-06
SCENE IN THE ISLAND OF MAURlTIUs DoDo

| are easily digested in it; in that and
shape not little resembling the
Afric oestriches.'
But one living specimen of the
dodo was ever known to have been
seen outside Of Mauritius. This one
was brought alive to Europe by a
Dutch navigator, and exhibited in
London in 1888 The evidence of
this is contained in a manuscript in
the British Museum by Hamon LES
TRANCE, and is as follows:
About 1888. as l walked London
streets, l 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 it, 1t 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 like the breast of a young cock
fesan, and on the back of dunn or
deare colour. The keeper called it
dodo, and in the ende of CHIMNEY
in the chamber there lay heape of
large pebble stones, whereof hee gave
it many in our sight, some as bigge as
nutmegs, and the keeper told us shee
eats them Conducting to digestion)
A distinctly plaintive note in all
the literature extent concerning the
dodo excites curiosity and compass
sion. In his Introduction to 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 dodo would seem to show that it
is founded on the strikingly gro
tesque character Of the bird, taken
with the fact that nature had been
cruelty unkind to her in the matter
of equipment for self-defense She
could neither run nor fly, but was, as
one traveller expressed it, "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 unsubservient to flight
OF this cruelty of nature the dodo
herself appeared to be sensible, and
to show it in her visage," according
to the account of Sir Thomas Her
bert. At any rate, it made the ey-
tinction of the dodo, after the discov-
cry of the Island of Mauritius by the
Portuguese about 1905 so swift and
complete as to give it, to one inter-
ested, a favor 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 filled with the barks of ex-
plorers and marauding buccaneers in
search Of new worlds To these ruth
less food hunters the dodo fell an
easy prey, while the domestic animals
which accompanied civilization wan
tonly devoured her eggs.
In the narrative of one of these ex-
piOIeIS, w llIdU Vail vert Lduou,
who visited Mauritius in 1902, he
speaks of killing fifty dodos and TAX
ing them on board his ship, where
they were sailed. Assailed thus, both
in front and rear, what wonder that
the dodos visage "darted forth mel
ancholy," or that it gave up the I'M
equal struggle? The cut here shown
accompanied Zanen's narrative, and
is supposed to be from drawing
made by him.
The scarty relics of the dodo,
amounting to little more than frag-
ments of a head, leg and foot, can
he found only in the treasured collec-
lions of nations. while the paintings
made from life of this despised and
martyred bird by Roelandt Slavery
are beyond price. - From Youths
COMPANION.