A bird immortalised in the phrase ‘Dead as the Dodo’

This edited article about the Dodo originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 227 published on 21 May 1966.

Dodo

There is a phrase “as dead as the dodo,” which means that something is very dead indeed – completely extinct. But what was the dodo?

The dodo was a bird, a strange one, and its story is very curious too, to say the least of it.

In the Indian Ocean there is a tiny island, called Mauritius, which is famous for a variety of reasons. For instance, it is the place of origin of an extremely valuable postage-stamp: quite recently one of these stamps came up for auction and fetched many thousands of pounds. It was just a stamp that had been run off locally to celebrate a dance organized by one of the island’s officials, and the postmaster of Mauritius would no doubt have been as surprised as anyone had he known how famous it was to become. He lived, however, a long time ago, though even in his time the dodo had not been seen for hundreds of years.

The dodo was first described by a Dutchman named Van Neck. This was in 1598, though Mauritius had been known at least since 1502, when it was marked on a Portuguese map, though even that was probably taken from Arab charts.

Van Neck’s ship put into Mauritius for fresh water, and because sickness had struck the crew. They found, to their delight, that Mauritius was full of delicious things to eat and drink. Their favourite food was the turtle dove which, never having been in contact with man, was easily caught.

The Dutchmen also came across the dodo, which they also decided might be good to eat, but they were disappointed, and called it the “nauseous bird.” However, the dodo was decidedly a curiosity, and a specimen was taken back to Holland. It died on the way, but it nevertheless found its way to Leyden, and in a most mysterious way one of its feet got into the British Museum, where it intrigued the experts, who could not make up their minds whether it belonged to the ostrich, vulture or pigeon family. When another dodo was eventually acquired and dissected, it was found to be a kind of big pigeon.

Many voyagers of the time commented upon this weird bird, which was fat, indolent, and could eat anything. It had a terrifically strong hooked beak, and its digestion was helped by two large stones in the stomach, each as big as a man’s fist.

It was, indeed, a strange creature, and it was small wonder that when one was brought to London, alive (quite a feat in the seventeenth century), it was a source of great amazement.

This dodo was exhibited to the public for money, but when it died, interest evaporated and it ended up in an obscure museum. There it might have remained to this day, but for the fact that an energetic antiquarian and scholar, Elias Ashmole, the founder of the world-famous Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, came across it and decided that it would be an adornment to his old university.

So the dodo found its way to Oxford, but apparently no one bothered to take care of it, for at some unknown date mice (or rats) nibbled the body and the leg!

No one can say that the dodo was a pretty bird. There remain several paintings of it done at the time, but they differ so much that we must conclude that the artists’ imagination ran away with them a little bit.

The written descriptions are probably more accurate. Dodos were the size of large swans “and have a funny sort of skull-cap on their strange bald heads. Instead of wings they have three or four black feathers and, instead of tails, four or five curly little feathers, greyish in colour.”

Surprisingly enough, Mauritius accommodated not only one rare bird but two. The other, which was like a kiwi, was covered with red hair-like feathers. It was called the aphanapteryx.

With a name like that, no wonder it is not better known!