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.