THE DODO.
(Vol. v., pp. 463. 515.)
I beg to inclose the copy of a letter received by me in reply to my inquiry respecting the specimen of a dodo said to be at the house of Sir John Trevelyan, Bart., Nettlecombe Park, Somersetshire, a notice of which appeared in "N. & Q." published on the 15th ultimo. I shall feel much obliged if you will have the kindness to publish the same as an answer to Mr. Winn's Query.
A. D. Bartlett.
"Sir,
"I wish I could confirm the truth of the information given to Mr. Winn, which I think it is scarcely necessary for me to say is entirely incorrect: and how such a report could have originated it is difficult to understand; unless by supposing that a member of the family when at Nettlecombe, in their childhood, had seen a stuffed specimen of the large bustard; and that this, in the course of years, had been magnified in their imaginative and indistinct recollection into a dodo. I admired much your restoration of the dodo at the Great Exhibition; which, judging from the old pictures and known remains of the bird, gives, I think, a very good idea of what it was. I do not know of any other remains of the dodo than those enumerated by Mr. Strickland; and had there been any at Nettlecombe, they would long ago have been known to naturalists.
"I remain, Sir,
"Yours faithfully,
"W. C. Trevelyan.
To Mr. A. D. Bartlett,
12. College Street, Camden Town."