The English naturalist, Mr Strickland, who has
devoted an amazing amount of labour and research to the elucidation of
this mysterious question, and Dr Reinhardt of Copenhagen, were the
first who referred the dodo to the pigeon tribe, having arrived almost
simultaneously, by two distinct chains of reasoning, at the same
conclusion; and their opinion is corroborated by a dissection that was
lately made of part of the head at Oxford.
There can be no doubt that the dodo was one of those instances, well
known to naturalists, of a species, or part of a species, remaining
permanently in an undeveloped state. As the Greenland whale never
acquires teeth, but remains a suckling all its life; as the proteus of
the Carniolian caverns, and the axolotl of the Mexican lakes, never
attain a higher form than that of the tadpole; so the dodo may be
described as a permanent nestling covered with down, and possessing
only the rudiments of tail and wings. Nor are we to consider such
organisations as imperfect. Evidently intended for peculiar situations
and habits of life, they are powerful evidences of the design
displayed in the works of an All-wise Creator. Wandering about in the
forests of the Mauritius, where, previous to the advent of man, it had
not a single enemy, the dodo, revelling in the perpetual luxuriance of
a tropical climate, subsisted on the nuts that fell from the
surrounding trees.
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