The first of these is the best known, and is that from which the figure of the Dodo, in all modern compilations of ornithology, has been copied. It once belonged to George Edwards, who, in his work on birds, (vi. 294,) tells us, that "the original picture was drawn in Holland from the living bird, brought from St Maurice's island in the East Indies, in the early times of the discovery of the Indies by the way of the Cape of Good Hope. It was the property of the late Sir H. Sloane to the time of his death, and afterwards becoming my property. I deposited it in the British Museum as a great curiosity. The above history of the picture I had from Sir H. Sloane, and the late Dr Mortimer, secretary to the Royal Society." It is still preserved in the place to which Edwards had consigned it, and may be seen in the bird gallery, along with the actual foot already mentioned. Although without name or date, the similarity both of design and execution, leads to the conclusion that it was by one or other of the Saverys. It may be seen engraved in the Penny Cyclopædia, in illustration of Mr Broderip's article Dodo in that work.
The second painting, one of Roland Savery's, is in the royal collection at the Hague, and may be regarded as a chef-d'œuvre. It represents Orpheus charming the creation, and we there behold the Dodo spell-bound with his other mute companions. All the ordinary creatures there shown are depicted with the greatest truthfulness; and why should the artist, delighting, as he seems to have done, in tracing the most delicate features of familiar nature, have marred the beautiful consistency of his design by introducing a feigned, or even an exaggerated representation? We may here adduce the invaluable evidence of Professor Owen.
"While at the Hague, in the summer of 1838, I was much struck with the minuteness and accuracy with which the exotic species of animals had been painted by Savery and Breughel, in such subjects as Orpheus charming the Beasts, &c., in which scope was allowed for grouping together a great variety of animals. Understanding that the celebrated menagerie of Prince Maurice had afforded the living models to these artists, I sat down one day before Savery's Orpheus and the Beasts, to make a list of the species, which the picture sufficiently evinced that the artist had had the opportunity to study alive. Judge of my surprise and pleasure in detecting, in a dark corner of the picture, (which is badly hung between two windows,) the Dodo, beautifully finished, showing for example, though but three inches long, the auricular circle of feathers, the scutation of the tarsi, and the loose structure of the caudal plumes. In the number and proportions of the toes, and in general form, it accords with Edwards' oil-painting in the British Museum; and I conclude that the miniature must have been copied from the study of a living bird, which, it is most probable, formed part of the Mauritian menagerie. The bird is standing in profile with a lizard at its feet."—Penny Cyclopædia, xxiii. p. 143.
Mr Strickland, in 1845, made a search through the Royal Gallery of Berlin, which was known to contain several of Savery's pictures. Among them, we are happy to say that he found one representing the Dodo, with numerous other animals, "in Paradise!" It was very conformable with the figure last mentioned; but what renders this, our third portrait, of peculiar interest, is, that it affords a date—the words "Roelandt Savery fe. 1626," being inscribed on one corner. As the artist was born in 1576, he must have been twenty-three years old when Van Neck's expedition returned to Holland; and as we are told by De Bry, in reference to the Mauritius, that "aliæ ibidem aves visæ sunt, quas walkvogel Batavi nominarunt, et unam secum in Hollandiam importarunt," it is quite possible that the portrait of this individual may have been taken at the time, and afterwards recopied, both by himself and his nephew, in their later pictures. Professor Owen leans to the belief that Prince Maurice's collection afforded the living prototype,—an opinion so far strengthened by Edwards's tradition, that the painting in the British Museum was drawn in Holland from a "living bird." Either view is preferable to Dr Hamel's suggestion, that Savery's representation was taken from the Dodo exhibited in London, as that individual was seen alive by Sir Hamon Lestrange in 1638, and must therefore (by no means a likely occurrence) have lived, in the event supposed, at least twelve years in captivity.
Very recently Dr J. J. de Tchudi, the well-known Peruvian traveller, transmitted to Mr Strickland an exact copy of another figure of the Dodo, which forms part of a picture in the imperial collection of the Belvedere at Vienna—by no means a safe location, in these tempestuous times, for the treasures of either art or nature. But we trust that Prince Windischgratz and the hanging committee will now see that all is right, and that General Bem has not been allowed to carry off this drawing of the Dodo in his carpet-bag. It is dated 1628.
"There are two circumstances," says Mr Strickland, "which give an especial interest to this painting. First, the novelty of attitude in the Dodo, exhibiting an activity of character which corroborates the supposition that the artist had living model before him, and contrasting strongly with the aspect of passive stolidity in the other pictures. And, secondly, the Dodo is represented as watching, apparently with hungry looks, the merry wriggling of an eel in the water! Are we hence to infer that the Dodo fed upon eels? The advocates of the Raptorial affinities of the Dodo, of whom we shall soon speak, will doubtless reply in the affirmative; but, as I hope shortly to demonstrate that it belongs to a family of birds all the other members of which are frugivorous, I can only regard the introduction of the eel as a pictorial license. In this, as in all his other paintings, Savery brought into juxtaposition animals from all countries, without regarding geographical distribution. His delineations of birds and beasts were wonderfully exact, but his knowledge of natural history probably went no further; and although the Dodo is certainly looking at the eel, yet we have no proof that he is going to eat it. The mere collocation of animals in an artistic composition, cannot be accepted as evidence against the positive truths revealed by comparative anatomy."—(P. 30.)
The fifth and last old painting of the Dodo, is that now in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and presented to it by Mr Darby in 1813. Nothing is known of its previous history. It is the work of John Savery, the nephew of Roland, and is dated 1651. Its most peculiar character is the colossal scale on which it has been designed,—the Dodo of this canvass standing about three feet and a half in height.
"It is difficult," observes our author, "to assign a motive to the artist for thus magnifying an object already sufficiently uncouth in appearance. Were it not for the discrepancy of dates, I should have conjectured that this was the identical "picture of a strange fowle hong out upon a cloth," which attracted the notice of Sir Hamon Lestrange and his friends, as they "walked London streets" in 1638; the delineations used by showmen being in general more remarkable for attractiveness than veracity."—(P. 31.)
We have now exhibited the leading facts which establish both the existence and extinction of this extraordinary bird: the existence, proved by the recorded testimony of the earlier navigators, the few but peculiar portions of structure which still remain among us, and the vera effigies handed down by artists coeval with the period in which the Dodo lived: the non-existence, deduced from the general progress of events, and the absence of all knowledge of the species since the close of the seventeenth century, although the natural productions of the Mauritius are, in other respects, much better known to us now than then. Why any particular creature should have been so formed as to be unable to resist the progress of humanity, and should in consequence have died, it is not for us to say. "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy;" and of this we may feel assured, that if, as we doubt not, the Dodo is extinct, then it has served its end, whatever that might be.