564
Mauritius and proximate other few islands.
32
Tim Flannery and Peter Schouten
point out that “Just one significant subtropical island archipelago retained its full
fauna until after 1500 – the Mascarene Islands.” And that “the last complete dodo
specimen was held by the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. In 1755, the ageing
mounted skin was ordered out for destruction, but somebody had the foresight to cut
off the head and right foot before consigning the rest to the flames.”
33
Supposedly, a live dodo was seen and painted in approximately 1600 by Joris
Hoefnagel at the menagerie at Ebersdorf.
34
But the underlying details are infinitely
more complicated, as Jolyon C. Parish’s extraordinary forensics reveal, providing
what, to date, is the most thorough, depressing elucidation of the earliest one or two,
possibly three Dodo’s to arrive in Europe, in his book The Dodo and the Solitaire:
A Natural History. It reads like a murder mystery because it is.
35
Parish leads us
backward from an auction in 1782 of Prague Castle in which the “Prague dodo, or
at least its beak” may have been for sale. He analyzes possibly correlative data on
the current dodo bones at the Národní Muzeum in Prague, and concludes, upon an
abundance of data, that “If Rudolf received the dodo alive it probably lived in one
of the vivaria that he established at Prague.”
36
The Emperor’s bird(s)—not just the
Dodo, but also two legendary cassowaries and a Mauritius red rail—might have
likely lived together, considering the scope of Rudolf’s zoological compulsions and
an oisellerie Oiseaux he had built in 1601 adjoining the main garden to the north of
Prague. All vague, to be sure.
37
But just how and from where the Dodo arrived is a
detective story with no resolution. A Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese ship? A gift sent
from Amsterdam? An itinerary from one aviary at the gardens of Hradcany Castle
to Ebersdorf? In transit from the Indian Ocean to Holland and on to Schloß
Neugebäu? Or “that it lived in Rudolf’s menagerie c. 1604–1605 and ‘died a Dodo’s
death around 1607’ (Van Wissen 1995, 64); that it had arrived at Prague in 1604
(Valledor de Lozoya 2002a) and that it had probably been taken alive to Prague
sometime between 1599 and 1609 (Hendrix 1997) – also cannot be proved with
certainty,” Parish writes, citing an enormous range of references, however
suppositional.
38
Making this even more problematic is Parish’s analysis of two other pieces of
Dodo bone, one referred to as “Clusius’s bird” (Carolus Clusius [1526–1609] was
the prefect of Maximillian II’s imperial medical garden in Vienna)
39
the other, the
painter “[Dirk De Quade]Van Ravesteyn’s bird” which Parish suggested was
32 See A Gap in Nature – Discovering The World’s Extinct Animals, by Tim Flannery and Peter
Schouten, Text Publishing, Melbourne, Australia 2001, pp. 4–5.
33 ibid., p. 4.
34 Extinct Birds, Errol Fuller, Oxford University Press, Oxford UK 2000, p. 146.
35 Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana, 2012.
36 ibid, pp. 186–189.
37 ibid. 189.
38 ibid. p. 189.
39 See https://www.timelineindex.com/content/view/3185, Accessed April 25, 2020.
59 Savery’s Castle of Secrets
Mauritius and proximate other few islands.
32
Tim Flannery and Peter Schouten
point out that “Just one significant subtropical island archipelago retained its full
fauna until after 1500 – the Mascarene Islands.” And that “the last complete dodo
specimen was held by the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. In 1755, the ageing
mounted skin was ordered out for destruction, but somebody had the foresight to cut
off the head and right foot before consigning the rest to the flames.”
33
Supposedly, a live dodo was seen and painted in approximately 1600 by Joris
Hoefnagel at the menagerie at Ebersdorf.
34
But the underlying details are infinitely
more complicated, as Jolyon C. Parish’s extraordinary forensics reveal, providing
what, to date, is the most thorough, depressing elucidation of the earliest one or two,
possibly three Dodo’s to arrive in Europe, in his book The Dodo and the Solitaire:
A Natural History. It reads like a murder mystery because it is.
35
Parish leads us
backward from an auction in 1782 of Prague Castle in which the “Prague dodo, or
at least its beak” may have been for sale. He analyzes possibly correlative data on
the current dodo bones at the Národní Muzeum in Prague, and concludes, upon an
abundance of data, that “If Rudolf received the dodo alive it probably lived in one
of the vivaria that he established at Prague.”
36
The Emperor’s bird(s)—not just the
Dodo, but also two legendary cassowaries and a Mauritius red rail—might have
likely lived together, considering the scope of Rudolf’s zoological compulsions and
an oisellerie Oiseaux he had built in 1601 adjoining the main garden to the north of
Prague. All vague, to be sure.
37
But just how and from where the Dodo arrived is a
detective story with no resolution. A Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese ship? A gift sent
from Amsterdam? An itinerary from one aviary at the gardens of Hradcany Castle
to Ebersdorf? In transit from the Indian Ocean to Holland and on to Schloß
Neugebäu? Or “that it lived in Rudolf’s menagerie c. 1604–1605 and ‘died a Dodo’s
death around 1607’ (Van Wissen 1995, 64); that it had arrived at Prague in 1604
(Valledor de Lozoya 2002a) and that it had probably been taken alive to Prague
sometime between 1599 and 1609 (Hendrix 1997) – also cannot be proved with
certainty,” Parish writes, citing an enormous range of references, however
suppositional.
38
Making this even more problematic is Parish’s analysis of two other pieces of
Dodo bone, one referred to as “Clusius’s bird” (Carolus Clusius [1526–1609] was
the prefect of Maximillian II’s imperial medical garden in Vienna)
39
the other, the
painter “[Dirk De Quade]Van Ravesteyn’s bird” which Parish suggested was
32 See A Gap in Nature – Discovering The World’s Extinct Animals, by Tim Flannery and Peter
Schouten, Text Publishing, Melbourne, Australia 2001, pp. 4–5.
33 ibid., p. 4.
34 Extinct Birds, Errol Fuller, Oxford University Press, Oxford UK 2000, p. 146.
35 Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana, 2012.
36 ibid, pp. 186–189.
37 ibid. 189.
38 ibid. p. 189.
39 See https://www.timelineindex.com/content/view/3185, Accessed April 25, 2020.
59 Savery’s Castle of Secrets