'Tis owing to his short-hand youth
That Socrates does now speak truth."
Vol. i. p. 59. Edit. 1814.
M.
Dublin.
The Dodo, existing Specimen of.
—A friend of mine has just informed me, on the authority of one of the principal members of the family, that at Nettlecombe Park, in Somersetshire, the seat of Sir John Trevelyan, Bt., there is now existing a stuffed specimen, entire, of the supposed extinct bird, the Dodo.
How is it that such an important fact should have escaped the notice of the principal naturalists of the country? At the Great Exhibition there was a manufactured specimen of this bird, which called forth, I believe, the encomium of Mr. Strickland and other well-known naturalists; but not a word was said about this alleged real specimen at Nettlecombe Park. There was in the same case which contained this fictitious Dodo, a cast of the head and leg from the remains now in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford,—the only portions, I believe, that were rescued when the entire specimen of the bird, once in that collection, was destroyed. It is said, I think, there are other remains somewhere abroad; but that there is no entire specimen of the Dodo now in existence anywhere, is, I imagine, the universal belief. I hope that you, or some of your correspondents, may be able to solve this mystery, or set my friends right should they be labouring under some mistake.