The Dodo and the Solitaire , livre ebook

LIFE OF THE PAST            James O. Farlow, editor
THE DODO AND THE SOLITAIRE
A NATURAL HISTORY

JOLYON C. PARISH
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS               Bloomington & Indianapolis
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Parish, Jolyon C., [date]     The dodo and the solitaire : a natural history / Jolyon C. Parish.     p. cm.–(Life of the past)     Includes bibliographical references and index.     ISBN 978-0-253-00099-6 (cloth : alk. paper)–ISBN 978-0-253-00103-0 (e-book) 1. Dodo. 2. Solitaire (Bird) I. Title.     QL696.C67P37 2013     598.9--dc23                                                         2012023510
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To HUGH EDWIN STRICKLAND (1811–1853) and ALEXANDER GORDON MELVILLE (1819–1901) and to MY PARENTS
Contents
C
Acknowledgments
Introduction: A Melancholy Visage
Note on Translations
Notes on the Text
List of Abbreviations
1   Written Accounts of the Dodo
First Encounters: Van Neck's Account
“Cermes Gaensen”: The Journals of the Gelderland
Reyer Cornelisz's Account
Van West-Zanen's Account
Matelief's Account
Van der Hagen's Account
Johann Verken's Account
Manuel de Almeida's Account
The Altham Dodo
The Phœnix of Mauritius: Thomas Herbert's Account
The Surat Dodos
The “Burgemeesters” (Anonymous 1631)
A “strange fowle”: L'Estrange's Dodo
François Cauche's Account
The Batavia Dodo
Castaways' Tales: The Aernhem Disaster
The Last Days
The Red Rail and the Dodo
2   Written Accounts of the Rodrigues Solitaire
Introduction
Memoirs of a Refugee: Leguat's Account
Tafforet's Account
Jonchée 1729
Gennes de la Chancelière 1733
D'Heguerty 1754
Cossigny 1755
Sic itur ad astra: The Visit of Alexandre-Guy Pingré
3   Contemporary Illustrations
Introduction
“Unequalled of the Age”: Mans r's Dodo Painting (Mans r)
The Dodo's Portrait Painter: Roelandt Savery
Van der Venne's Illustration (Van-der-Venne)
De Hondecoeter's Dodo Paintings
Hans II Savery's Dodo Illustrations
Saftleven's Dodo Painting
Van den Broecke's Dodo
Ruthart, Francken, and Van Thulden's Paintings
The 2009 Christie's Dodo Picture (Christie's-Dronte)
Mistaken Identity: Minaggio's Feather Picture
4   Secondary Contemporary Sources and Miscellanea
Clusius's Account
Plinius Secundus
Bontius's Account
Nieuhof's Account
Randle Holme's The Academy of Armory
Post-traumatic Reminiscences: Bontekoe's Account
South American Dodos: Van Spilbergen's Account
Two Mauritian “Robinsonades”: Neville and Von Grimmelshausen
A Troubled Afterlife: Post-contemporary Accounts
Naming the Dodo and Solitaire
Pseudodoxia Epidemica: The Réunion Dodos
The Dodo and the Penguin
The “Dodo of Vere”
Dodo Miscellanea
5   Anatomical Evidences
Introduction
The Prague Dodo
The Copenhagen Dodo Head
The Anatomy School Dodos
Petrus Pauwius's Dodo Foot
The British Museum Dodo Foot
The Tradescant Specimen
Resurrection: History of Bone Discoveries (1786-Present)
6   The Natural History of the Dodo and the Solitaire
Description
Ecology
Classification and Taxonomy
Phylogenetic Placement and Evolution
Taphonomy
7   Afterword: Memories of Green
Rara Avis
       Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
A
Many people have helped with this project. Where information has been generously provided they are mentioned in the main text. I would especially like to thank Anthony Cheke, Fanny Cornuault, Errol Fuller, Owen Griffiths, Alan Grihault, Jan den Hengst, Julian Hume, Anwar Janoo, Arturo Valledor de Lozoya, and Ralfe Whistler for assistance and scholarly discussion over the years. I am grateful to Nick Arnold, Fred Stone, Didier Dutheil, and Pierre Bourgault du Coudray for providing personal accounts of their discoveries. For their generous help I would like to thank Clair Castle, Ann Charlton, Adrian Friday, and Ray Symonds at Cambridge and Malgosia Nowak-Kemp at Oxford. I would like to express my thanks to Bob Sloan and the staff at Indiana University Press for all their help, and in particular to June Silay and Raina Polivka. I am also grateful to the staff at the British Library, NHM Libraries, Lampeter University Library, and The Plume Library, Maldon. For all their help and support I have to thank my parents and AEK Jan den Hengst, Anthony Cheke, Elio Corti, Birgit Jauker, Esther van Gelder, Florike Egmond, and Arturo Valledor de Lozoya provided assistance with translations. Jesper Düring Jørgensen, Kongelige Bibliotek, kindly provided a facsimile extract of Paludanus's 1617–1618 MS. Arthur MacGregor, Hanneke Meijer, and Greg Middleton read through draft sections. I would like to thank Paul Barrett for suggesting, and putting me in contact with, Indiana University Press. The title of the afterword was borrowed from Vangelis (Blade Runner soundtrack, 1994; See You Later , 1980). An anonymous reviewer provided helpful comments and corrections on the book manuscript, and Dawn Ollila copyedited the text and gave helpful input.
Introduction: A Melancholy Visage
I
The visage of the dodo, its plight, and extinction are indeed melancholic, but counter to Thomas Herbert's statement, it is not “nature's injurie” that is the cause of melancholy, but the destruction of the species and its habitat as a result of human activities. The pieces of this visage or picture are presented here; it is a picture that endures today.
The dodo (Raphus cucullatus) and the solitaire (Pezophaps solitaria) were large, flightless columbids endemic to the volcanic Mascarene Islands in the Indian Ocean: the former to Mauritius and the latter to Rodrigues (figs. Intro.1 – Intro.3 ). The dodo is renowned for being extinct; indeed, it is an icon of extinction. This, combined with its attractive appearance - great size, large head, small wings and rounded body (often exaggerated in pictures) - renders it a familiar bird. It disappeared within around one hundred years of its first recorded description and thus, although we have enough information to gain an idea of its appearance and ecology, there is insufficient evidence to form an accurate picture; this has led to many speculations. The story of the dodo, like that of the solitaire, has been pieced together from fragments, both literary and physical. “Dodology” - the study of the dodo (Oudemans 1917b) - entails knowledge of history, anatomy, ecology, art, and literature. Many hundreds of articles have been written about it (see the online bibliography in “The Dodologist's Miscellany”) and it was, and still is, a popular inclusion in natural history books.
The dodo was formerly known as Didus ineptus , under which name it is commonly found in older literature. Together, the dodo and Rodrigues solitaire are sometimes referred to as “didine” birds. The Réunion solitaire was formerly included in this group, but is now known to have been an ibis. However, the matter has been complicated by attribution of illustrations of white dodos to this bird. In the past, due to confusion, a so-called bird of Nazare was also sometimes included among the didine birds. Following the classification used herein, the dodo and solitaire are referred to as raphins (that is, of the tribe Raphini) in the text.
The Mascarenes were probably discovered by the Arabs and subsequently by the Portuguese. The Dutch first landed on Mauritius in 1598 and were apparently the first to describe the dodo. No pre-1598 records are known for the dodo or solitaire (pers. obs.; Janoo 2005). It was common in the seventeenth century to refer to the lands of the Indian Ocean as the “East Indies” and to the lands east of Africa as “India.” Thus, any textual mentions of “Indian” birds should be investigated for potential references to the dodo.
There have been speculations involving, among other things, seasonal and sexual size differences, color, and diet. As Van Wissen relayed, “Since Dodology is spread over many disciplines there's no interdisciplinary monitoring…. This has been the case from the very beginning and explains why there are more unrefuted speculations about the Dodo than any other bird” (1995, 8). Likewise, Fuller remarked: “Anyone delving into dodo literature should beware. Most of it is poorly written, badly conceived and contradictory” (2002, 30). Mistakes have often been repeated, with little or no reference to their source material. There has been much inferior scholarship in dodo research (a recent example being Pinto-Correia 2003). Moreover, suppositions have often been stated and re-stated as facts. Some contemporary accounts (e.g., Matelief 1646; Van der Hagen 1646; Van West-Zanen 1648) were published many years after the event. Furthermore, it is not known to what extent editors changed text or added material.

this “mirae conformationis avi”
Hamel (1848, 156)
The subject [of the dodo] indeed is well worn. Nevertheless the interest is great; for nothing ever clothed in feathers, either living or extinct, has so generally and universally occupied the minds of men as the sp