"The Dodo," he says, "comes first to our description. Here and in Dygarrois (and nowhere else that I c^d ever see or heare of) is generated the Dodo. (A Portuguize name it is, and has reference to her simplenes) a bird which for shape and rareness might be call'd a Ph{oe}nix (wer't in Arabia); her body is round and extreame fat, her slow pace begets that corpulencie; few of them weigh lesse than fifty pound: better to the eye than the stomack: greasie appetites may perhaps commend them, but, to the indifferently curious, nourishment, but prove offensive. Let's take her picture: her visage darts forth melancholy, as sensible of nature's injurie in framing so great and massive a body to be directed by such small and complementall wings, as are unable to hoise her from the ground, serving only to prove her a bird; which otherwise might be doubted of: her head is variously drest, the one halfe hooded with downy blackish feathers; the other perfectly naked; of a whitish hue, as if a transparent lawne had covered it; her bill is very howked and bends downwards, the thrill or breathing place is in the midst of it; from which part to the end, the colour is a light greene mixt with a pale yellow; her eyes be round and small, and bright as diamonds; her cloathing is of finest downe, such as ye see in goslins; her trayne is (like a China beard) of three or foure short feythers; her legs thick, and black, and strong; her tallons or pounces sharp; her stomack fiery hot, so as stones and yron are easilie digested in it; in that and shape, not a little resembling the Africk oestriches: but so much, as for their more certain dyfference I dare to give thee (with two others) her representation."[62] It is pretty certain that a living specimen was about the same time exhibited in England. Sir Hamon L'Estrange tells us distinctly that he _saw_ it. His original MS. is preserved in the British Museum, and with some blanks caused by the injury of time, of no great consequence, reads as follows:--