dodo (dodo)

[ doido, a simpleton, a fool, doudo, doido, adj., adj., simple simple, foolish. According to Diez, this word, which is unknown in Spanish, came from England (?): E. dial. (Devon) dold, stupid, confused: see dolt. Cf. booby, booby, a bird so named for a similar reason. the Dutch (1) (1) walgh- vogel, now walg - vogel, lit. 'nauseous bird'; also (2) arse, "propter fædam posterior is partis cra itiem" (note "(note dated 1626), or because of some resemblance to the dabchick or little grebe, which was also so called; also (3) dronte (Dan. dronte = Sw. dront); origin unknown. The NL. name is did us, Sp. dido: see Didus.] A recently extinct bird of Mauritius, Didus inep The bird was also named by (2) dod - aers, aers, lit. 'dead Dodo ( Didus inept us). From a painting in the Belvedere, Vienna. tus, the type of the family Dididæ and suborder Didi, now usually a igned to the order Columba. The dodo was living in Mauritius on the discovery of that island by the Portuguese under Mascarenhas in the beginning of the sixteenth century, and it is known to have survived until July, 1681. Knowledge of the bird was for some time confined to the quaint and often questionable narratives of voyagers, certain pictures, mostly by Dutch artists, and a few fragmentary remains. In 1866 bones in abundance were found, and the o eous structure has been described in detail. The dodo was a ma ive, clumsy, flightle , and defensele bird, about as large as a swan, covered with downy feathers, with a very stout hooked bill, short strong legs, short tail, and wings too small for flight; so that it soon succumbed under the new conditions which the occupation of the island introduced, its extinction being probably due as much to the animals which man introduced as to the human invaders of the island. The solitaire ( Pezophaps solitarius ) of Rodriguez, an island of the same group, was similar to the dodo, but sufficiently distinct to be placed in a different genus. (See solitaire.) The neighboring island of Réunion or Bourbon also had a dodo, in all probability a third kind. does You shall receue... a strange fowle: which I had at the Iland Mauritius called by ye Port in galls a Do Do: which for the rarene thereof I hope wilbe welcome to you. Emanuel Altham , letter written in 1628. [This is the earliest known English mention of the bird.] The Dodo comes first to a description: here and in Dygarrois [Rodriguez) (and no where else, that I ever could see or heare of) is generated the Dodo (a Portuguize name it is, and has reference to her simplene ), a Bird which for shape and rarene might be call'd a Phoenix (wer 't in Arabia). Sir T. Herbert , Travels (ed. 1638). Dodonæan (do-do-nē'an), a. [L. Dodonœus, The wreath of wild olive distinguishes the Olympian from the Dodonœan Jupiter, who has the crown of oak leaves. C. O. Müller, Manual of Archæol. (trans.), § 350. It is in the great prayer, where Achilles addre es Zeus as Dod on a i an and Pelasgic. Contemporary Rev., LIII. 186.