THE WONDERFUL DODO BIRD
A VERY long, long time ago, in the far off country of Switzerland, which is the land of high mountains and goats and tourists, there was a wonderful bird. Nobody ever saw him near by, for he lived in a forest of alpenstocks, and he had the longest kind of legs, so that no matter how fast the tourists pulled up the alpenstocks, or how hard they tried to catch him, he always got away. The only way any one could see him was to watch the mountain tops, for when the weather was pleasant, he would climb up and stand there outlined clearly against the sky, his long legs making him taller than anything around him, and he would bob up and down—first his head and then his tail, and then his head again—and wave his plume and call, “Do-do, do-do.”
The peasants made little dodo birds whittled out of wood, and sold them to the tourists, and because a real dodo bird was only hatched once in a blue moon, and there are no more blue moons, why, the ones the peasants made are the only dodo birds left. And this is how they made them.
The foundation of the bird’s body (Fig. 1) is a chunky piece of wood an inch and a half square by three inches long. On each end of this is marked a circle—an inch and a half in diameter, which makes it just touch each edge. Then by cutting from circle to circle, as nearly straight as possible, the wood is made into a three-inch-high cylinder. Next one whole end is rounded off like the large end of an egg. The next steps in making the dodo bird are not quite as simple. A straight line is drawn all the way around the body, from end to end, which divides it into two equal parts. At the end of the line which represents the middle of the bird’s back is measured off a space a quarter of an inch on either side. This makes a half-inch space which is the tip of his tail, and from these points lines are drawn on the flat end surface, to complete the four-sided figure shown in the end view of Fig. 1, which is the whole end of his tail. It tapers from a half inch at the top to about a quarter inch at the bottom, and when it is all finished, the bottom is slanted in a trifle. Next the bottom part is whittled up in a curve which meets the lower end of the tail, and the rest of the body is whittled in the shape shown in the side view of Fig. 1. This part can’t be done by lines because it is a gradual curve all over. When this is done two flat slanting surfaces are whittled off for the sides of the tail.
Diagrams of a Dodo Bird.
Now you are ready to make the grooves for the head and tail feathers to go in. Part of the lower center line has been whittled off and will have to be replaced. Then, measuring three-sixteenths of an inch on each side of this line, make parallel lines which shall extend around the lower part of the body from the end of the tail to a point on the front end just a quarter of an inch below the top. A space a half inch wide is left in the middle of the bottom for the legs to fasten on, and the rest is to be made into the grooves as shown on the pattern. The easiest way to do this is to cut as far in as possible, on the parallel lines which you have drawn, with a small saw. Then chip the wood out with a small chisel, and, with the chisel held bevel side down, round out the bottoms of the grooves. If you haven’t such a chisel though, you can manage with a knife.