Three hundred years ago, when the Portuguese first visited the Island of Mauritius, they found a great number of these birds. They were about the size of a large swan, blackish gray in color and having only a bunch of feathers in place of a tail, and little, useless wings. More stupid and foolish birds could not be imagined. They ran about making a silly, hissing noise like a goose, and the sailors easily knocked them over with their paddles. They couldn't fly, they couldn't swim, they couldn't run at any great speed, and as for fighting, they were the greatest cowards in the world. They were much too stupid to build a nest, and so they dropped an egg in the grass and went off and let it hatch as best it could. Added to all these things its flesh was fairly good to eat, and the Portuguese pursued it so steadily for food that in less than a century's time there wasn't a single dodo left in the world. It was quite too silly and stupid to save its own life, and so it became extinct. THYME. (_Thymus Serpyllum L._) DR. ALBERT SCHNEIDER, Northwestern University School of Pharmacy. But, if a pinching winter thou foresee, And wouldst preserve thy famished family, With fragrant thyme the city fumigate. --_Virgil, Georgics, (Dryden), IV., 350._ The field or wild thyme (_Thymus serpyllum_) is a small, much-branched shrub, about one foot high, with rather slender quadrangular, purplish, pubescent stems. Leaves small, opposite, sessile. Flowers numerous, in clusters in the axils of the upper leaves. Corolla purplish, irregular; calyx green and persistent. The plant is propagated by means of underground stems. It is far from being a showy plant. This plant is closely related to the garden thyme (_T. vulgaris, L._), and grows profusely in meadows, fields and gardens. Both species are very fragrant and it is to this characteristic that they owe their popularity. The ancient Greeks and Romans valued thyme very highly and made use of it as a cosmetic, in medicine and in veterinary practice, much as it is used at the present time. Thyme yields the oil of thyme which is a valuable antiseptic, used as a gargle and mouth wash, for toothache, in dressing wounds and ulcers, also for sprains and bruises, in chronic rheumatism, etc. It finds extensive use in the preparation of perfumes and scented soaps; but its principal use is in veterinary practice. The herb is much used as a flavoring agent in soups and sauces, in fomentations, in baths and in the preparation of scented pillows. Two kinds of oil of thyme appear upon the market, the red oil and the white oil. The latter is less aromatic being the product of redistillation. The oil is also known as oil of origanum. Although thyme is an insignificant plant as far as appearances are concerned it has been sung by many poets. In Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream" Oberon, the king of the fairies, says to Robin Goodfellow;