Mr. Thompson finds this evidence strengthened by the facts and statements of a paper by Mr. Duncan, in the _Zoological Journal_ for January, 1828; and infers that a bird of corresponding size and character did actually exist, of which the only remains are a bill and foot in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and a foot in the British Museum, all of which Mr. Thompson examined on his return from the Mauritius in 1816. The specimen, which in part remains at Oxford, was originally in the museum of Tradescant, at Lambeth, which was purchased and removed to Oxford by Dr. Ashmole; the _entire bird_ is proved to have been in the Museum in 1700; and in a catalogue of the collection drawn up since 1755, the disappearance of all but the bill and foot of the Dodo is explained by an order of a meeting of the visitors in the last-named year. Tradescant, it will be recollected, was gardener to Charles the Second; and in the portrait of him still preserved is introduced a Dodo, which belonged to him when alive. Another painting of the bird, to be seen in the British Museum, is stated by Mr. Duncan, to have been executed from a living bird, sent from the Mauritius to Holland, the Dutch being the first colonists of that island; but, Mr. Thompson thinks, "to dissipate all doubts as to its accuracy, it should be collated with a description taken from the Ashmolean specimen, should such be found to exist." Mr. Thompson is inclined to consider Leguat's natural history of the Dodo as "the only one that was ever penned under such favourable circumstances. No doubt this first colony, in so small an island, considerably reduced the number of the Dodo; but when they finally disappeared, does not seem to be anywhere recorded." The most interesting consideration connected with their disappearance is their being "the only vertebrated animals which we can make certain of having lost since the creation. If we seek to find out what link in the chain of Nature has been broken by the loss of this species, what others have lost their check, and what others necessarily followed the loss of those animals which alone contributed to their support," Mr. Thompson thinks "we may conclude that, the first being seen by the Omniscient Creator, at least no injury will be sustained by the rest of the creation; that man, its destroyer, was probably intended to supplant it, as a check; and that the only other animals which its destruction drew with it, were the intestinal worms and pediculi peculiar to the species." Buffon, Latham, and Gmelin have three species of Dodo, while we find it difficult to establish the existence of one. Indeed, it is improbable that the three islands of the Mauritius group possessed each a distinct type of so singular and unique a bird. * * * * * MOUNT ARARAT.