Memoir on the Dodo (Didus ineptus, Linn.) — John Shaqi
Memoir on the Dodo (Didus ineptus, Linn.)Owen, Richard
History
Memoir on the Dodo (Didus ineptus, Linn.)
Owen, Richard
Dodo
are now rare. The shells, especially those whose _habitats_ are
the seas of the Antilles, are at present very common; but at the
date of the picture—the second year of the reign of our first
Charles—the natural productions of the West Indies were not well
known, and were, comparatively, very scarce. With the shells on the
shore is the cranium of a carnivorous quadruped, apparently of the
family _Canidæ_. The monster-cetacean in the distance has evidently
no chance with the avenger who is coming down upon him mounted on a
winged steed. But Pegasus, who, with other prodigies, sprang from
the blood that dropped from Medusa’s head, as the conqueror who had
cut it off with his harpe traversed the air with his gory trophy,
immediately winged its flight to Helicon, there to become the pet
of the Muses. The best version of this mythological story relates,
that when Perseus afterwards killed the sea-monster and delivered
Andromeda on the coast of Ethiopia, he effected his purpose by
raising himself in the air through the aid of the wings and talaria
given to him by Mercury, and not with the help of the winged horse
on which most of the painters mount him.
“Professor Owen informs me that Roland Savery’s picture containing
the Dodo, in the Berlin collection, bears the date of 1626; and
that the colour of the Dodo in the Duke of Northumberland’s picture
resembles that of the portrait of the bird, of life size, by the
same painter, now at Oxford. L’Estrange describes the hue of the
back of the living Dodo which he saw exhibited in London ‘about
1638,’ as of ‘dunn or deare colour.’”
The picture of the Dodo at Berlin by R. Savery, to which Mr. Broderip
refers, is copied in figure 1, Plate I. Another figure of the bird,
by the same artist, is introduced into a painting in the Imperial
Collection of the Belvedere at Vienna. Fig. 3, Plate I. of the present
work, is from the copy of this picture, transmitted by Dr. Tschudi to
Mr. Strickland, and given at p. 30 of the ‘Dodo and its Kindred.’ The
date of the picture is 1628.
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