Raphus cucullatus (Dodo)

[Melanie]

Dodo Skeleton Found on Island, May Yield Extinct Bird's DNA
Kate Ravilious
for National Geographic News
July 3, 2007

Adventurers exploring a cave on an island in the Indian Ocean have discovered the most complete and well-preserved dodo skeleton ever found, scientists reported yesterday.

Researchers say the find would likely yield the first useful samples of the extinct, flightless bird's DNA.


Very little has been known about the dodo—from what exactly it looked like to what it ate—since it became extinct in the 1600s.

The new skeleton is thought to be complete and was likely preserved by its cave setting.

The cavers found the remains off the coast of Africa on Mauritius, the only island were dodos were known to have lived (see a map of Africa).

The discovery was made last month, but its location was kept secret until the skeleton was completely recovered on June 29.

Nicknamed Fred after the caver who found the bones, the bird was kept under guard while the recovery took place, according to press reports.

DNA Clues

Until now most of the information about dodos has come from scattered bone fragments. Only one other full skeleton was ever unearthed—in the 1860s—but it has been of limited scientific value, because the person who discovered it never revealed where it was found.

"We need to know about the location to understand the ecology of the dodo," said Kenneth Rijsdijk, a scientist with Geological Survey of the Netherlands, who plans to study the environment in which the newfound bird was discovered.

The site of the new dodo skeleton and the layout of its bones has been precisely recorded, making the find already very useful to scientists, he added.

"We can take soil samples and discover how and why the animal got there," Rijskijk said.

What's more, the location of the new skeleton makes it much more likely to yield DNA, said Beth Shapiro, a geneticist from Oxford University who studies dodo remains.

Most other dodo bones have come from a swampy region of Mauritius known as Mare aux Songes, she said.

"We have found tons of bones there, but the hot, wet, acidic environment has meant that the DNA survival has been terrible," Shapiro said.

Fat Pigeons

Because dodos laid their eggs on the ground, the birds were easy targets for predators such as rats and pigs, which were introduced by Europeans 400 years ago.

Humans also hunted the dodo, which was about the size of a turkey, and within 80 years of its discovery the bird became extinct.

Since then the only dodo DNA sample has come from a specimen that was transported from Mauritius to the U.K. by a collector in the 15th century, Shapiro said.

"From a tiny fragment of DNA we were able to figure out its taxonomic relationship to other birds and show that dodos were essentially fat pigeons," she said of the study, which was conducted in 2002.


The cave site of the new skeleton is likely to provide the best hope of a decent DNA sample because the bones will not have been exposed to sunlight and the temperature was fairly constant, she added.

"We are really excited about the new find and hope it might tell us much more about the behavior and appearance of dodos," Shapiro said.

[sebbe67]

Scientists fly into raptures over flightless Fred

BOIS CHERI, Mauritius (Reuters) - The remains of a dodo found in a cave
beneath bamboo and tea plantations in Mauritius offer the best chance yet to
learn about the extinct flightless bird, a scientist said on Friday.

The discovery was made earlier this month in the Mauritian highlands but the
location was kept secret until the recovery of the skeleton, nicknamed
"Fred," was completed on Friday. Four men guarded the site overnight.

Julian Hume, a paleontologist at Britain's Natural History Museum, told
Reuters the remains were likely to yield excellent DNA and other vital
clues, because they were found intact, in isolation, and in a cave.

"The geneticists who want to get their hands on this will be skipping down
the street," he said, after bringing the last of the remains to the surface.

Given the nickname "Fred" after the 65-year-old who found them, the remains
should provide the first decent specimens of dodo DNA, he said.

"Then you can work out how it actually got to Mauritius, because it must
have originally flown here before evolving into flightlessness and the big,
fat bird that we know," he said.

"We know it's a giant pigeon," he added.

It the first discovery of dodo remains away from the coastal regions,
suggesting that the bird, extinct since the 17th century, lived all over the
Indian Ocean island, he said.

Hume said the dodo was almost certainly finished off by animals introduced
by Europeans about 400 years ago. Theories that it was hunted to extinction
by the Dutch were "total nonsense," he said, adding that the remains were
highly fragile.

"If you try and pick it up, it just falls apart," he said. "You won't see a
mounted, beautiful thing from this."

[another specialist]

source for above

today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyid=2007-07-01T163759Z_01_L29715732_RTRUKOC_0_US-MAURITIUS-DODO.xml

tinyurl.com/ysc3hp

today.reuters.com/misc/PrinterFriendlyPopup.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyID=2007-07-01T163759Z_01_L29715732_RTRUKOC_0_US-MAURITIUS-DODO.xml

tinyurl.com/2ck2ms

[another specialist]

paginas.fe.up.pt/~fff/Homepage/Fila_aves4.html

[RSN]

A picture I did some days ago:
rsnature.deviantart.com/art/Dead-as-a-Dodo-63318350

[RSN]

Concept art from the credits of Zoo Tycoon 2: Extinct Animals (Microsoft, Blue Fang; 2007):

[Melanie]

Another early painting of the Dodo by Ustad Mansur (1610)

[another specialist]

Taken at the Harvard museum of comparative zoology Cambridge, Massachusetts

www.flickr.com/photos/20968143@N02/2040501024/in/pool-530806@N22

[Carlos]

Časopis Národního muzea, Řada přírodovědná
(J. Nat. Mus., Nat. Hist. Ser.)
Vol. 173 (1–4): 111–112, 2004

Extinction of the Dodo Raphus cucullatus (Aves: Raphidae): dating reconsidered
Jirí Mlíkovský

Department of Zoology, National Museum, 115 79 Praha 1, Czech Republic; [e-mail]
Received June 17, 2004 Accepted July 26, 2004

A b s t r a c t . The date when the Dodo, Raphus cucullatus (LINNAEUS, 1758), became extinct was generally supposed to fall in the 1660s or later in the 17th century. Evidence is presented, that the species became extict much earlier, probably in the early 1630s.

 Aves, Raphus cucullatus, Mauritius, extinction

The Dodo, Raphus cucullatus (LINNAEUS, 1758), was a large flightless pigeon endemic to the island of Mauritius, western Indian Ocean, where it was discovered for science in 1598 during the 2nd Dutch expedition to the East Indies (Strickland 1848, Hachisuka 1953, van Wissen 1995, Zisviller 1996, Fuller 2000, 2002a,b). Its last record was generally attributed to Volkert Evertszen, who reportedly encountered it on Mauritius in 1662 (see Olearius 1666). Recently, Roberts and Solow (2004) and Hume et al. (2004) suggested, that the Dodo became extinct much later, possibly between 1690–1700. Reconsideration of the available record, however, indicates that the dodo died out much earlier.

The reported observations of the dodo on Mauritius are limited to the following years (authors/observers are given in parentheses; reports marked with an asterisk include description and/or figure(s), which confirm the identity of the bird): 1598 (van Neck*), 1601 (Cornelisz*), 1602 (van West-Zanen*), 1606 (Matelief*), 1607 (van der Hagen*), 1611 (Verhuffen*), 1617 (van den Broecke*), 1628 (Herbert*), 1628 (Altham), pre-1631 (Anonymous*), 1638 (Cauche), 1662 (Evertszen), 1663–1674 (Simon in Hugo: 2 records), 1673 (Hugo), and 1685–1688 (Lamotius: 12 records). For details and citations see Strickland (1848), Hamel (1848), Hachisuka (1953), van Wissen (1995), Zisviller (1996), Fuller (2002b), Hume et al. (2004) and Mlíkovský (in press).

The following records require comments: (1) The anonymous report from 1631 was written in that year, but considers observations made somewhen prior to that date. There is no available record of the dodo from 1631 (contra Roberts et Solow 2004). (2) The book attributed to Cauche (1651) is of doubtful authorship and includes many dubious data (Atkinson 1920; see also Adams 1962). The dodos were described here as black birds larger than swans, having long, three-toed legs. This description probably applies to cassowaries (Casuarius sp.), which were sometimes confused with the dodos in the 17th century (see Strickland 1848). (3) Evertszen (see Olearius 1666) described the alleged dodos as swiftly running birds, which indicates that they were not the dodos of the earlier travelers. (4) Hubert Hugo (see Pitot 1905) and Isaac Loan Lamotius (see Hume et al. 2004) referred to certain birds as to 'dodaersen', which led Hume et al. (2004) to assume that their reports considered dodos. However, Dutch word 'dodaers" was applied to a variety of birds with tailless appearance, such as dodos, cassowaries or little grebes (Strickland 1848, Oudemans 1917). There is no evidence, that Hugo or Lamotius applied the name to roper dodos.

After the removal of the alleged records discussed above, all reliable observations of dodos fall into the period 1598–1628. These data coincide with the origin of dodo pictures (excluding copies), the last of which probably originated in 1626 (Fuller 2002b). In addition, Grand Mogul Jahangir of Surat, India, obtained for his menagerie live dodos between 1624–1627, where they were seen by Peter Mundy sometime between 1628–1633 (see Stresemann 1958). Peter Mundy (ca. 1600–1667) was a learned traveler – acquainted with dodos – who contributed a significant negative record of dodos on Mauritius, because he found there no trace of them during his visit to the island in 1638.

In summary, dodos were repeatedly recorded on Mauritius between 1598–1628. There is a negative record from 1638. There is a gap of 34 years between the last confirmed observation of a dodo on Mauritius and the series of 'dodaersen' observations in 1662–1688. It is thus highly probable, that the Dodo died out between 1628 and 1638, i.e. only 30–40 years after 1598, when the bird was discovered for science and the island became frequently visited by travelers. This seems thus to be another example of a blitzkrieg against island birds, formerly shown to lead to the extinction of New Zealand moas (Holdaway et Jacomb 2000).

REFERENCES
Adams, P. G. (1962): Travelers and travel liars 1660–1800. – Berkeley: University of California Press, xiv+292 pp.
Atkinson, G. (1920): The extraordinary voyage in French litrature before 1700. – New York: Columbia University
Press, 192 pp.
Cauche, F. (1651): Relations véritables et curieuses de l'Isle de Madagascar et du Bresil. – Paris: Augustin Courbé,
307+212+57 pp.
Cheke, A. S. (1987): An ecological history of the Mascarene Islands, with particular reference to extinctions
and introduction of land vertebrates. – In: Diamond A. W. (ed.): Studies on Mascarene birds: 5–89. Cambridge:
Cambridge Univerity Press.
Fuller, E. (2001): Extinct birds. Rev. ed. – Oxford: Oxford University Press, 398 pp.
Fuller, E. (2002a): Extinct birds. In: del Hoyo J., Elliot A., Sargatal, J. (eds): Handbook of the birds of the world.
Vol. 7: 11–68. Barcelona: Lynx Edicions.
Fuller, E. (2002b): Dodo: from extinction to icon. – London: Collins, 180 pp.
Hachisuka, M. (1953): The Dodo and kindred birds. – London: H.F. & G. Witherby, 250 pp.
Hamel J. (1848): Der Dodo, die Einsiedler und der erdichtete Nazarvogel. – Bulletin de la Classe Physico-
Mathématique de l’Académie Impériale des Sciences de St. Pétersbourg 7: 65–96.
Holdaway, R. M., Jacomb, C. (2000): Rapid extinction of the moas (Aves: Dinornithiformes): model, test, and
implications. – Science 287: 2250–2254.
Hume, J. P., Martill, D. M., Dewney, C. (2004): Dutch diaries and the demise of the dodo. – Nature 426 [Brief
communication arising from the paper by Roberts et Solow 2004. Online published on 10 June 2004.] –
www.nature.com/nature.
Mlíkovský, J. (in press): Cenozoic birds of the world. Part 2: Africa. – Praha: Ninox Press.
Olearius, A. (1666): Die Gottorfische Kunst Kammer. – Schleswig.
Oudemans A. C. (1917): Dodo-Studiën naar aanleiding van de vondst van een gevelsteen met Dodobeeld van 1561
te Vere. – Verhandlingar der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen (Amsterdam) (2) 19 (4): i–vii, 1–140.
Pitot, A. (1905): T'Eylandt Mauritius: esquisses historiques. – Port Louis: Coignet Frères, [10] +372+xv pp.
Roberts, D. L., Solow, A. R. (2004): When did the dodo become extinct? – Nature 426: 245.
Stresemann E. (1958): Wie hat die Dronte (Raphus cucullatus L.) ausgesehen? – Journal für Ornithologie 99: 441–459.
Strickland, H. E. (1848): History and external characters of the Dodo, Solitaire, and other extinct brevipennate
birds of Mauritius, Rodriguez, and Bourbon. – In: Strickland H. E., Melville, A. G. (eds.): The Dodo and
its kindred, or the history, affinities and osteology of the Dodo, Solitaire, and other extinct birds of the islands
of Mauritius, Rodriquez, and Bourbon: 1–65, 123–134. – London: Reeve, Benham, and Reeve.
Wissen, B. van (1995): Dodo. – Amsterdam: Zoologisch Museum, University of Amsterdam, 103 pp.
Ziswiler, V. (1996): Der Dodo: Fantasien und Fakten zu einem verschwundenen Vogel. – Zurich: Zoologisches
Museum, 94 pp.

[Peter]

Extinct dodo's DNA linked to pigeons
British team tracks ancestry of humans' first evolutionary victim.

David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor
Friday, March 1, 2002

The legendary dodo, a flightless bird extinct for more than 300 years, has yielded its DNA for the first time, and scientists say it is related to pigeons in Southeast Asia and even, though more distantly, to San Francisco's own flocks of the often-scorned scavengers.

From a scrap of skin and a bit of bone, British biologists at Oxford University, together with an American graduate student from Georgia, have created a fascinating genealogy for the weird creature, the most poignant emblem of extinction at the hands of humans.

The genetic findings, along with the volcanic history of the islands in the Indian Ocean where the bird originated, show that the dodos probably descended from an unknown ancestral bird some 42 million years ago that flew from Africa to what are now the Mascarene Islands east of Madagascar.

Two separate species of descendants -- the dodo (Raphus cucullatus) and a close, flightless relative called the solitaire (Pezophaps solitaria) evolved some 26 million years ago. Millions of years later, they took roost on two separate Indian Ocean islands: the dodo on Mauritius and the solitaire on nearby Rodrigues.


DELICATE ANALYSIS
The evolutionary history comes from a delicate and difficult kind of DNA analysis that is being reported today in the journal Science by a group headed by famed molecular biologist Alan Cooper of Oxford University and Beth Shapiro,

a Rhodes scholar less than three years out of the University of Georgia.

The dodo survived on Mauritius for millennia, but in the 1500s sailors began hunting them, and the species became extinct when the last survivor there was shot in 1681, according to historical records.

One bird, however, was stuffed and has been mounted in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History for more than 150 years. The exhibit once fascinated Charles Dodgson, the young mathematician who, as Lewis Carroll, wrote the classic "Alice in Wonderland," wherein the dodo served as the peremptory judge of a hilariously disorganized racing event.

It was from that Oxford museum specimen that Cooper obtained his dodo tissue for Shapiro to work out the sequence of the bird's gene fragments, he said yesterday by e-mail.


DNA COMPARISON
Shapiro and the team compared the dodo DNA with gene sequences from the bone of a solitaire that Jeremy Austin of the London Museum of Natural History had discovered in a limestone cave on Rodrigues island, where he was studying giant tortoises.

After finding that the sequences of the two extinct birds closely resembled the genetic material of modern pigeons, the group compared their dodo genes with 35 different pigeon species and worked out the relationships among them all.

It turned out that the dodo's closest living relative is the Nicobar pigeon (Caloenas nicobarica) from the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal -- a species that today is kept in many zoos around the world, including a colony in the research aviaries of the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park that are not open to the public.


RELATED TO PIGEONS
According to Cooper, the dodo's living relatives do indeed include San Francisco's pigeons, (Columba fasciata). "It's a distant relationship," Cooper said. "Common pigeons are the rats of the bird world -- but only in the sense that they're incredibly adaptable. The pigeon family is huge, at least 300 species, demonstrating that the whole group has been very successful at adapting to new niches."

But as a warning to the fantasy-minded who think it might now be possible to re-create a dodo from its DNA, Cooper said: "It is impossible to bring back extinct species by 'cloning' them, despite rumors to the contrary, because DNA decays rapidly after death, and only incredibly small fragments survive after a short amount of time.

"Furthermore, the finances required for such an effort, which would be scientifically futile, would be much better spent on conserving the species and their environments that survive around us today, rather than any anthropomorphic pursuit of large, cute extinct species for a pipe-dream zoo display."


'MUCH-CLEARER PICTURE'
To Douglas J. Long, acting chairman of birds and mammals at the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, the Oxford research is extremely important because, as he said yesterday, "now we have a much clearer picture of the evolution of the dodo, and for pigeons as a whole."

And he added: "The extinction of a species isn't just a tragedy for poets and environmentalists, but it's a huge loss for scientists. For with each passing of a species, we lose a unique and irreplaceable source of information for understanding the complexities of evolution.

"In this case the researchers managed to salvage some of that information, but it is just a fragment in proportion to all the other unknown aspects of that species. Elements such as behavior, vocalization, reproduction, plumage, anatomy, diet and ecology will, perhaps, never be known."



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dodo facts:
Here is some information about the dodo bird:

Appearance: Large, plump bird with small, weak wings that could not lift it into the air, making it easy prey for human predators. It had a large hooked beak, and a plume of white feathers adorned its otherwise gray body.

Weight: 40 to 50 pounds

Habitat: Portugese sailors discovered the dodo on the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean in 1598. Having never seen humans, the bird was not frightened by humans. Sailors mistook its lack of fear as stupidity, and dubbed the bird 'dodo.''

Extinction: Many dodo birds were killed by humans. Dogs and pigs introduced onto the island of Mauritius preyed on its eggs. By 1681, the dodo was gone, making it the first example of how humans can drive another species to extinction.

E-mail David Perlman at [e-mail].

Source: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/03/01/MN196875.DTL#sections.

[dysmorodrepanis]

This paper is most interesting, because it illustrates the drawback of molecular phylogenies:
In comparative anatomy, when a featute changes, one can commonly retrace the evolution of the feature. Even parallel evolution will result in marked differences, because the character states are analog, that is, they are a fluid continuum in time of which bones etc are a snapshot.
DNA sequences are likewise a snapshot, but they can only take one of 4 discrete states (the 4 bases), so they are more digital. Over the course of evolution, often the same base-change mutation will appear in unrelated lineages.

One can compare more character states in comparative anatomy than in molecular studies (an order of magnitude larger, that is, molecular studies compare usually 1-4 genes, whereas anatomical studies compare several dozen features).

So DNA analyses are not better or worse than comparative anatomy, but they result in a different kind of error. Only these two approaches together (and others, like biogeographical ones etc) can weed out each other's errors.

This becomes clear in the "Science" paper:
Drepanoptila holosericea and Alectroenas are the closest relatives of each other, according to molecular data. But they simply cannot be, because they represent very different offshoots of the Ptilinopus-Ducula radiation - one that got to the W Indian Ocean the same way as the Dodo did (via S India), one that is derived from some Melanesian/Fijian form of proto-Ptilinopus. Both Alectroenas and Drepanoptila are so distinct from all other doves that they have obviously differentiated in the place where they are now found; that is, the true evolutionary history is that their last common ancestor was not long after the Dodo/Caloenas lineage branched off! They simply happen to have *in the DNA sequenced for this study* evolved in parallel.

So the actual phylogeny is be: Drepanoptila is the sister taxon of the Ptilinopus group (or even included in Ptilinopus as a sister to the Fiji "Chrysoenas" forms*), and Alectroenas is the sister taxon of Ptilinopus (including Drepanoptila) and Ducula.

The conclusions regarding the Dodo are most probably correct, since they make sense biogeographically. Besides, anatomy won't help - it's not as if nobody has tried that approach (the assumptioon thatthe dodo was a rail is based on anatomical comparison. No, it was a pigeon - one that in many ways behaved like a giant crake, and thus had somewhat comparable anatomy!) But Caloenas is not a close relative of the Dodo. It is simply a form derived of some pigeons from (probably) Malaysia or so, which were also ancestors to some pigeons who went down the Indian Ocean via S India and evolved into the dodo and solitaire (there was a chain of islands roughly from the Maldives to Mauritus in that time).

In taxonomy, it is generally unwise to rely upon one method alone.

* This does not mean it belongs into Ptilinopus. Even though it would genetically be closer to some Ptilinopus than to anything else, it's not the exact DNA sequence that is relevant to evolution, but *where* it has changed, i.e., the morphology and habits of the species. DNA is the vehicle of evolution, but it is not the target of natural selection (usually - in hot-spring bacteria etc, DNA itself is a target of natural selection, because CG bonds are stronger than AT bonds - organisms in very hot environments will have a higher overall CG content in their DNA).
As should be a prime rule in good science, one always has to get to the very basics of what a research result tells us. This study just concludes that there has been this and that degree of molecular separation, which is a rather comfortable measure of thumb for evolutionary relationship. It does not say anything about where this separation occurred and what its consequences were.

[another specialist]

Hopes for dodo DNA rise

10 August 2007



The dodo foot bones, tarsometatarsus, discovered in a cave in the Mauritius highlands. © L Steel

recent find of a dodo skeleton raises hopes of getting genetic material from the extinct flightless bird.

In late 2006, biologists looking for cave cockroaches in caves in the Mauritius highlands accidentally came across the remains of a dodo skeleton.



A model of a dodo (Raphus cucullatus).

The dodo skeleton, nicknamed 'Fred' after one of its discoverers, was at the bottom of a chamber inside the cave. The bones were very badly decomposed and fragile.

However, there's a very good chance of obtaining DNA from the bones because the cave conditions were favourable for DNA preservation. A stable temperature and dry to slightly humid environment are essential.

Collecting the dodo
Lorna Steel, fossil expert at the Natural History Museum, traveled out to Mauritius in July to help collect and preserve the dodo specimen.

'I was a little concerned about the stability of the boulder chamber where we were working,' said Lorna, 'so I was keen to get the bones out as fast as possible, but without damaging them or losing any contextual information. It was a great relief to finally reach daylight again!'

Photos and drawings were taken of the specimen while it was still in position in the cave. This is to record the bones in context with their surroundings.

Next the bones were carefully removed as they are extremely delicate. A chemical called paraloid was applied to them to make them stronger. Finally they were packed in custom-made supports and taken to the local museum.

Extinction
The dodo, Raphus cucullatus , became extinct in the late 1600s, only 80 years after Europeans discovered it. Dodos laid their eggs on the ground, making them easy targets for introduced predators such as rats and pigs, and it was for this reason that it probably became extince..

Destruction of the natural habitat by human arrivals also occured, so extinction became inevitable for the dodo and many other species, both animal and plant.

Why was it in the cave?
This is the first time dodo remains have been found in the Mauritius highlands. Previous finds are all from coastal areas.



Bones from the dodo's foot. © L Steel

Scientists think that Fred entered the cave to seek shelter from a violent cyclone, fell down a deep hole and could not climb out. The dodo remains were found along side those of another extinct bird, the Mauritian owl.

If scientists are able to extract DNA from Fred it will be of great scientific value, as we know very little about the genetics of the dodo. It may also be possible to use dating methods to find out how long Fred had been lying in the cave.

Bones from the marsh
Numerous bones of dodos and other extinct animals were found in a coastal marsh, the Mare aux Songes , in 1865, by a teacher called George Clark. His collections have found their way into museums all around the world.

The marsh was filled in with rubble by the British Army in the 1940s to prevent malaria and was feared lost to science. However, a Japanese team drilled through the rubble in the late 1990s, and re-discovered a bone bed dating to 4000 years ago.

An Anglo-Dutch-Mauritian team excavated the marsh in 2005 and 2006, and the 2007 fieldwork is currently under way (see blog link below). The bones are well preserved but no DNA has as yet been successfully collected.

www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/news/2007/august/news_12220.html

[another specialist]

nrm.museum/ve/birds/sape/GlobalOwlProject/Fossil_owls/Cowles%201987.pdf

[another specialist]

www.scribd.com/doc/2621714/Mysterious-CreaturesA-Guide-To-Cryptozoology

[ttyo888]

What other creatures did the dodo lived with?

[another specialist]

documents.scribd.com/docs/1xijt70cgabivrzddjz8.pdf

[another specialist]

documents.scribd.com/docs/1xijt70cgabivrzddjz8.pdf

[another specialist]

Extinct birds : an attempt to unite in one volume a short account of those birds which have become extinct in historical times : that is, within the last six or seven hundred years : to which are added a few which still exist, but are on the verge of extinction (1907)

I will post the plates as and when they appear in the above book

[another specialist]

[another specialist]